


Moving on/Making do

by SilentAuror



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Infidelity (Mary), M/M, POV John Watson, POV Mary Morstan, Pining!John, Pining!Sherlock, Post-Season/Series 03 Fix-It, emotional infidelity (John), the ending of a marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 05:13:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1675976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentAuror/pseuds/SilentAuror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Split between Mary's POV (<i>Moving on</i>) and John's POV (<i>Making do</i>), this is the story of a marriage falling apart. As Mary strives to move their marriage ahead from the events of <i>His Last Vow</i>, John tries to reconcile himself with his choice of having forgiven Mary, while also coming to terms with what his choice has meant for his friendship with Sherlock. Post-HLV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving on/Making do

**Moving On/Making Do**

Being heroic takes so much energy.

It’s in the way he exhales before he bends to gather and tie up the sides of the rubbish bag before pulling it out of the bin and taking it down to the kerb. It’s in the way he gets that look of martyrdom whenever she asks him to do anything he wasn’t expecting to have to do. It’s in the resentment in his jaw and the tightness of his shoulders, his elbows, his spine. He won’t say it – he’s decided to be heroic, after all. The bigger person. The man who forgets and forgives and doesn’t say anything. Water under the bridge.

Crap swept under the carpet, more like, Mary thinks cryptically, watching John type something on his laptop. He’s sitting in the armchair, not on the sofa or at the table or anywhere that he could be joined. He’s isolated himself as much as possible without having actually left the flat. The only way it could be more obvious would be if he had locked himself in the bathroom. (Loo. Do Brits say bathroom? She’ll have to check. These little slips are inexcusable. Surely they say bathroom. Everyone says bathroom. Unless it’s one of those horrid eastern countries where they’ve somehow adopted “water closet”. Those were always the worst missions. Places where the existence of toilet paper was not always guaranteed – or rather, its absence was. She still remembers the squat-and-hose system of many places in the Arabic world and further east, too. Whatever. She’ll say bathroom if she wants to, damn it.) 

John manages to make even the act of typing sound hostile and passive-aggressive. He’s really good as being passive-aggressive. Better than average, she’s been finding. At least he’s here, she reminds herself. Those four months before Christmas were the worst, when he’d taken himself to Baker Street, ostensibly to look after Sherlock but really to sulk and avoid her. A real man would have left her there and then if he couldn’t accept her reasons for having done what she did. No, that’s not nice: John is a real man. But the fact that it had taken him four months to grudgingly decide to forgive her still rankles. 

It also rankles that he destroyed the memory stick. At the time it felt like a relief, but the more she thinks about it, the more Mary realises that it’s a problem. A rather large one. The truth is half-out, half-hidden. Well, perhaps “half” is too generous. Call it thirty-five/sixty-five, maybe. He knows from the thirty-five percent that he doesn’t want to know the sixty-five. And maybe that’s for the best; maybe he couldn’t handle it. But it doesn’t change the fact that he knows about it, knows it’s there. And that he doesn’t know what it is that he doesn’t know. She’s waiting for him to start resenting that he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know, yet the very lack of knowledge will gnaw at him and fester in his mind like a splinter until he finally decides he’s ready to know the truth. To discover who it is that he married. 

Not tonight, though. John suddenly lifts his head, looking annoyed. “What _is_ this?” he asks, as though he’s been sitting on the question for an hour already and that she was expected to have known and provided an answer. It’s the first time he’s spoken since supper, though – and that was already a subdued affair. 

Mary looks over at him from her spot on the sofa. “What is what?” She’s extremely perceptive but she’s still not a mind-reader. 

“This music,” John says, his eyebrows doing that furrow that makes him look five years older than he is. “What is this, easy listening for the elderly and senile?”

Mary feels her lips tighten. “It’s Enya. And I happen to like it.”

John ignores the second part. “Can you change the station or something? I can feel it rotting my brain from here.”

“It’s a CD,” Mary says, not budging. She has absolutely no intention of heaving herself off the comfortable sofa to go and change a CD she chose on purpose. 

John glares at the screen of his laptop and taps out approximately five more words. He picks up his phone and checks it, probably for texts, then sighs loudly and puts it down again. 

If he’s waiting for a text from Sherlock, she’ll hit him. As though it hadn’t been bad enough before the wedding when the three of them were nearly always together and she could barely get a moment alone with John, after four months of living with Sherlock again, John’s co-dependency has got worse than ever. It’s ridiculous, a man his age – a _married_ man his age, at that! It drives her crazy. He used to go through phases of talking about Sherlock absolutely non-stop. Now he won’t even say Sherlock’s name in front of her, as though she has no right to hear it. The day they went to say goodbye to Sherlock before he left on his mystery mission to Serbia or wherever it was, John had actually glared at her after she’d hugged Sherlock goodbye. 

She did shoot him. There is that. But when Sherlock himself forgave her, what right does John still have to be so pissy about it all the time? Honestly. He was like that about Sholto, too. A man he’d admired intensely and kept to himself, for the most part – he’d resented it when she’d asked about him, as though she’d been prying. He’d opened up eventually, but never spoke about him voluntarily, never even introduced Mary to him at the wedding. She’d met him for the first time while trying to staunch the bleeding in his back. At her own wedding, which is just ridiculous. It was twenty times worse with Sherlock, though. While he still thought Sherlock dead, John had made the man into a demi-god, exaggerating his intelligence, his fame, even his looks. In reality Sherlock was nothing but an overgrown, socially-awkward kid with too much time on his hands, too much money to do real work, evidently, and a knack for observation that he’d turned into a fairly useful hobby. He was quick enough, but not the Einstein John thought he was. As for his looks, there were aspects that she could agree were attractive, but the way John would talk about himself in comparison to Sherlock sometimes, or the way he would mention Sherlock having got them into some place just on the strength of a dazzling smile drove her around the bend. “He’s not that attractive,” she’d pointed out once, and John had looked at her as though she’d grown antlers. But he’d stopped talking about it, mercifully. 

She didn’t like his negative comparisons in terms of himself, either. John was confident enough about his own appearance, but she strongly suspected that Sherlock encouraged the adulation, the way he did with his intelligence. John would pay him a tiny compliment and Sherlock would bask in it so obviously that John, being a natural people-pleaser, would immediately say something else to bolster that inflated ego, watching it expand and bloom before his eyes with pleasure. He was always too nice to Sherlock, and far too nice about him. She’s a little too fond of cutting Sherlock down in front of John, too. They both resent it, but it’s just a little too tempting. _I’m not John, I can tell when you’re fibbing._ I’ll thank you not to play games with my husband, thank you, and if you think they’re going to work on me, think again. 

John’s too-nice side has not particularly been in evidence since Christmas, however. He moved back in on Boxing Day, though he spent half the day at the MI6’s holding cells with Sherlock. He’s forgiven her in word but in action it’s debatable. He’s physically present but he begrudges her every ounce of time spent with her instead of off with Sherlock. In a way they deserve each other, Mary thinks sometimes. Sherlock’s intense jealousy of Sholto was strongly reminiscent of the way John gets whenever anyone else has the temerity to act as they know the first thing about Sherlock, as though Sherlock Holmes is the sole property of John H. Watson. It’s ridiculous, like two young boys who get jealous about their best friends’ other friends. Only they’re grown men and it’s more than pathetic; it’s bizarre. A mutual co-dependency, then. They’re better off apart, though Sherlock’s dramatics with the heroin were clearly and transparently nothing more than a bid to get John to pay attention to him again, after having had the nerve to take a honeymoon with his brand new wife. It had worked, too. Clever of Sherlock, figuring out about Isaac Whitney and knowing which crack den to choose for his semi-feigned slide. And obviously it was going to be more effective on John had he actually been high, though Mary doubted at the time that it was an enormous sacrifice on Sherlock’s part to partake in his old vices. A real loser: a selfish, childish, needy, jealous, socially-awkward kid, really, and willing to do anything it would take to absorb John entirely. 

He probably hasn’t even put two-and-two together yet, realised exactly what he wants from John and how he wants it. It’s ironic, that such a perceptive man can have possibly missed the fact that he’s as gay as the day is long. Or rather: an asexual genius with a singular and terrifyingly strong exception for, specifically, her husband. 

Mary occasionally wishes she had taken better care to kill him when she’d had the chance. He should have died, damn it. The shot was specifically intended for him to bleed out slowly, go into shock in the ambulance and die on the way to the hospital. Somehow he’d had the nerve to survive. If he _had_ died, John would be back to the way he was when she met him: grieving, lonely, angry, and looking for a life raft with the desperation of a drowning man. She’d been only too happy to oblige then, and would be again. If Sherlock hadn’t survived, John would have got over his sulks by now and their marriage would be fine. He’d eventually accept her background (what little he knows of it, at least) and admit to himself that he finds it a turn-on and they’d be fine. Sherlock is the stumbling block in all of this. 

She’d shoot him again without blinking, only John wouldn’t forgive it a second time. It took him long enough the first time – four months, honestly! And besides which, she’d told herself that it was time to retire. Pro assassination work is a field for the young. Her knees weren’t what they had been once. Middle age had crept up, with its unwelcome crow’s feet and bags under her eyes, and long periods of crouching in a corner waiting for a victim took a toll they hadn’t when she’d started, her knees creaking audibly, quads aching in a way they never had before. She’d got slower. Started making little mistakes. She wasn’t as fast as she had been, and sooner or later it would have caught up to her. She’d chosen to get out. Shooting Sherlock would mean leaving John behind, slipping off the grid again. She’d got tired of that life. Tedious and simultaneously amusing as it is to talk petrol prices and rubbish days with the neighbours, Mary reminds herself regularly that she wanted this: a quiet life, with John. Sherlock is the only factor getting in the way of that. She’d rather not have to correct it, but they’re both wary now. 

She had known it was him that night at the restaurant, of course. He’d barely even spared her a fraction of eye contact, so focused was he on John, so there had never been a moment of having weighed one another, silently acknowledged _you are the enemy and I know it and I know that you know that I know_. Instead they’d silently adopted one another as surface allies, the closest thing to an acknowledgement of their naturally-occurring inborn animosity, the acknowledgement of their roles as proper opposites, hadn’t come until John had stormed off to hail a taxi. She’d asserted herself ever so subtly then. _I’ll talk to him._ A reminder that she was the principal person in John’s life now and held more sway over him than Sherlock did. He’d actually looked at her then. He’d impressed her with the astuteness of his casual observations about her to that point, when he’d bothered acknowledging her presence at all (she’d been so careful about John’s moustache, which really wasn’t that bad, but he’d still caught it), but never bothered actually looking her over in a moment of keen-eyed private analysis until then. He must have seen it, seen _something_ , only he’d never said anything, never reacted. And seemingly never said anything to John, either, just filed away whatever he’d observed and kept it to himself. She’d expected him to use it at some point, bring it up, try to drive John away from her. Instead he’d been unfailingly polite, even amiable. But never trusting. They both knew that, and when he forgot, she never failed to remind him of her position in relation to John, of her superior skills of observation, of his inability to use his powers of manipulation on her. He absorbed that without comment, too. He was so dependent on John that Mary had always assumed that he never bothered probing any further for the sole sake of keeping the peace with John. And that had worked, too. 

But she definitely should have made sure that he died that night. John never would have been any the wiser without Sherlock there to point it out to him, and they would still be happy and John wouldn’t be out walking and avoiding her and her music right now, saying something short about going for a walk – as though Enya somehow has the power to embody everything that bothers him about Mary. 

Mary closes her book and sighs to herself. He’ll come back eventually. And eventually he’ll let go of the grudge he’s nursing and move on. And then maybe they’ll be happy again. 

***

John walks and walks and walks and walks. He’s stopped paying attention to where he’s going. All that matters is that he doesn’t stop. When he stops, it all comes screaming around his head again, like birds of prey darting in, their wings beating thunder around his face. He can’t really escape them when he walks, either, but it’s better than sitting still and letting it all overwhelm him until he wants to scream, himself, or hurt something. Someone. 

He’s angry at himself for being so angry. But he can’t stop it. It’s like a drug, completely addictive and he’s in the downward spiral where he wants to punch holes into every wall, every reality, every face he sees. He hasn’t been this angry since Sherlock died. 

He’s compared Sherlock to a drug before, too. And that hasn’t changed now, either. He still feels it, the craving, the need to be with, protect, partake in the adventure, the mystery, the fun. It’s always been more than _fun_ , though. It gave him life again when everything had turned colourless and meaningless. He’d lost his ability to work in Afghanistan – the intermittent tremor had rendered him unfit for active duty as both doctor and soldier and it was all there in his medical file, preventing him from civilian medical work, too. The tremor disappeared after their first case. Sherlock even gave him that back: his own work, should he want it. 

On the surface, John knows that his anger is irrational. Sherlock was recalled from his mission in Serbia. Mycroft Holmes had found it in himself to acidly inform John of the mission’s true nature. Sherlock could have told him, could have said he wouldn’t be coming back this time. Maybe he hadn’t just to spare John the worry. So that John wouldn’t raise a fuss and protest. Make it all more difficult for Sherlock to say his brief goodbyes and leave. Or maybe he’d been hoping that Mycroft had exaggerated and had been counting on finding a way to come back. Only had he, though? John had seemingly left him nothing worth coming back for, hadn’t he? In forgiving Mary and moving back into the flat with her, he’d left Sherlock again. Made his alliances clear. Because it couldn’t be both, could it. Most people could get a girlfriend, get married, without it meaning any major compromises to the principal friendships in their lives. But Sherlock wasn’t most people. And, he’s finally had to admit to himself, neither is John. And Mary is hardly one’s average wife, either. Either way, Sherlock had kept all that to himself, sparing John the agony of knowing that it was goodbye forever this time. No _thirteen possible solutions_ , no tricks. This time, it was real. Had he meant to tell John? What _was_ the aborted thing he’d changed his mind about saying at the last second, there? John has lain awake thinking about this, wondering. It was clearly something very serious. One could even say profound. It wasn’t often that Sherlock’s face opened that way, so exposed and vulnerable that it almost hurt John to look at directly, as though he was seeing all of Sherlock, laid open and bare. As though he was seeing something he had no right to be seeing at all. Even if whatever Sherlock had suddenly decided to retract was about him, and it had to be, didn’t it? Instead, he’d made a joke and they’d both laughed just at the release in tension. It wasn’t a good enough joke that all that build-up had just been for its sake. No – whatever Sherlock had been thinking of saying was real. John knew it then and still believes it. 

So: Sherlock hadn’t gone, after all, and they have never talked about the aborted mission. Mycroft had shooed Sherlock into one of his many black town cars, presumably to talk about Moriarty, and John had been left to go home with Mary, a home he’d only just moved back into, feeling lost and unaccountably sad. He should have been relieved. He _was_ relieved when Mycroft had had him scooped off the street and deposited on the front steps of the Diogenes Club a week later to inform him of Sherlock’s release from the mission. John had demanded to know where Sherlock was and why he hadn’t heard from him. Mycroft had shrugged and said that Sherlock was not being detained and was at liberty to contact John if he so desired, and that if he hadn’t, perhaps it was merely because he had no desire for contact at that time. John had nearly thrown something at him, and fumed all the way back down the polished mahogany stairs of the club. 

He’d texted Sherlock outside on the pavement, demanding an update. _What’s happening with Moriarty, then? Why haven’t I heard from you?_ And Sherlock’s response, when it came, had been brief and vague. Finally John had got on a bus and gone to Baker Street. 

He’d found Sherlock stretched out on the sofa, looking so languid that John’s first fear, leaping into his throat with a trace of bile, was that he was high. But Sherlock had spoken first, his voice sounding perfectly normal and even. “John.”

“Hi,” John had said, walking inside. He’d stopped. “You okay?”

Sherlock waited a beat, then said, “Yes, of course. What brings you here?”

John had gestured with both hands, expansive and not fully conveying what he needed to say. “Do I need a reason to see you?”

Sherlock hadn’t moved. “I don’t know. Do you?”

This was going nowhere. John tried another tack. “I haven’t heard from you in days. One text since your mission was cancelled.”

A corner of Sherlock’s lip twitched. “Miss me?”

“That’s not very fucking funny,” John had said, both annoyed and stung. “What the hell is going on? Is Moriarty back? Why haven’t you told me anything about all that? You should know by now that I would want to help. I’ve been worried, damn it.”

He hadn’t meant to say that last, but it made Sherlock’s eyebrows lift a bit. “There’s nothing to tell,” he said, hands steepling under his chin. “I couldn’t tell you about something nonexistent.”

“Sorry, what?” John had demanded. “Explain.”

Sherlock swung his legs down and sat up, finally facing John. “There is no Moriarty. He’s not back. He’s been dead for over three years now.”

“But then – ”

“What was the whole broadcast about?” Sherlock gave a slight smile. “My brother. It was nothing more than his rather over-the-top efforts to get me out of that mission in Serbia.”

John had felt his mouth fall open. “Seriously?”

“Very much so.” Sherlock met his eyes with a twisted smile. “Good of him.”

John thought of saying something about the nature of said mission, but chickened out. He cleared his throat instead. “Well. Er. Good, then.”

“I thought so. Tea?” Sherlock got up, pulled his dressing gown around him and went into the kitchen without waiting for a reply. 

John’s head was still a blur of conflicted, mixed feelings. Wanting to stay and knowing that he wanted to much more than he should. Feeling that he should probably go. “Er – ”

Sherlock stopped moving, hands on the edge of the kitchen table, head bowing forward. “Or can’t you stay?” It was quiet. Resigned. 

John hated the resignation. “No, I can stay,” he insisted, and Sherlock’s shoulders had released slightly. 

They’d had tea at the kitchen table, for once miraculously clear of any experiments. John had learned years earlier that no experiments often hadn’t been a good indication in terms of Sherlock’s emotional well-being, and what Sherlock might be upset about at the moment was something he could only begin to guess at. But if it had anything to do with… what he suspected, then John hadn’t the first idea how to bring it up, anyway. They stayed to carefully neutral topics instead, and neither of them had once uttered Mary’s name. 

And that was a week ago now, and he’d not heard from Sherlock since. They’d never texted casually or pointlessly; it had always been something practical. An address, followed by _Come as soon as possible. Bring pliers._ Or _Milk’s off, tea’s dull without it. Buy some?_ Or _Forgot to mention we’re invited to a gala tonight. Black tie. Rented you a tuxedo. Jewel thief! Should be exciting!_ Or _Have you seen my blow torch?_ So he couldn’t very well just send a _Hey, what’s up?_ sort of text without it seeming completely facetious and stupid, and Sherlock would probably roll his eyes and not respond anyway. 

Although he already isn’t responding at all. He isn’t on a case or surely he would have told John. Invited him. (Told him to come, more like.) He’d gone so far as to ask Lestrade if Sherlock was on a case at the moment, humbling as it had been to have to admit that he himself didn’t know. Who knows Sherlock better than he does? (Not Janine, that much is damned certain. That still rankles.) Lestrade said no, though, so John has no idea what’s going on. Unless it’s the thing he suspects, with John being gone again. If he’s depressed about that, he could just ask to spend some time together. That’s always an option, and most people, upon missing their best friend, wouldn’t cut off all communication just because said best friend had had the nerve to attempt to fix his marriage. 

But Sherlock never had been most people. It is one of the things John has always liked best about him. And he thought that he should at least try, with the marriage. But try as he might, he cannot stop being angry. With himself, but mostly with Mary. He cannot understand her actions in the same light that she would prefer him to interpret them, and he cannot reconcile her actions with their consequences, nor can he stomach the concept that the sole motivation for anything she has done being for love. He knows that she loves him, but love doesn’t go far enough to justify the things that she’s done. The more he thinks about it, the more it bothers him. He’d managed to talk himself into taking her back on the merit of the notion that she was motivated by love for him, but the theory doesn’t hold enough water to stand a thorough cross-examination. He _knows_ that she loves him. She does. That part is past doubt. But she still didn’t need to shoot Sherlock.

John has thought this through hundreds of times since the terrible night when he found out. He’s questioned every aspect of it, considered it from every angle he can think of, yet it still just doesn’t quite work. Scenario: Mary is being threatened by Magnussen. God only knows what it was that he knew that made Mary so certain that John would stop loving her if he found out – and that was still after she’d shot his best friend. She tracks him down to demand, at gunpoint, his proofs. Whatever papers he’d had. Sherlock interrupts. John’s thought long and hard about the choices that would have been available to Mary then, revealed in her duplicity to arguably the world’s most observant person. She could have spoken to Sherlock as a friend, asked him to keep quiet for John’s sake, asked him for help. If she hadn’t been sure of Sherlock’s response, she could have chosen to knock him out for the time being, then got back to extorting Magnussen’s papers, dealing with Sherlock after that. She even could have threatened Sherlock at gunpoint if he seemed unwilling to hold his tongue. She could have asked him for help in telling John, even. Asked how to best approach it, how to do it in the least painful way possible. Sherlock would have helped her. For John’s sake, he would have. John is certain of this, if little else. 

But she chose none of those things. She chose, instead, to shoot Sherlock. Her shot was clever – ambiguous enough that John will never truly know whether or not she had intended for Sherlock to die. Well: he had died, technically. Every doctor in the emergency surgery had agreed that it had been, frankly, a miracle that Sherlock had revived, pulled out of asystole. They’d been seconds away from declaring him legally dead. His heart had stopped beating hours earlier, kept going only by nonstop CPR. Sherlock’s explanation, sometime during the autumn when John had cleared his throat and brought it up, breaking their companionable silence in front of the fire, had been that Mary hadn’t wanted him to get blamed for anything that had transpired in Magnussen’s flat – the assault on Magnussen, on Janine, on the security guard. Sherlock’s own shooting. There had been a police investigation, though nothing had been proven. Mary had disabled the security cameras beforehand and Magnussen had refused to talk or to press charges. Sherlock had explained that Mary must have chosen to shoot him where he did so that he would need to be taken to a hospital immediately, and that John would have gone along, naturally. She’d wanted him out of the building and out of harm’s way. 

She hadn’t had to shoot him in the heart, though. This is an unavoidable truth. Yet John understands that she thinks of it as necessary, as though she hadn’t had a choice. This, he thinks, is bollocks. Everyone has choices. You don’t just shoot people – especially not your friends, for Christ’s sake. Sherlock had been the best man at their wedding, and she shot him in the _heart_. 

John thinks of Sherlock, alone and listless at Baker Street and wonders if this has symbolic meaning as well as literal. 

He’d seen it, hadn’t he. He can’t really deny it any more. He’d seen it in Sherlock’s eyes the night of the wedding. Shortly before Sherlock had disappeared. He’d said his little thing about John not needing him around any more, and then his smile had faded and there’d been a horrible moment of both of them just standing there, knowing. He’d been only too glad that Mary had dragged him away to dance. What the hell was he supposed to say to that? 

And yet, despite his private indignation over what on earth anyone could expect of him with regards to that, John nonetheless feels terrible about it on occasion. The four months that he’d lived with Sherlock again, he’d glimpsed it now and then, but never frequently enough that he’d had to think about it all that often. It had been such a relief, being home again. Being at Baker Street again, rather. There’d been no one else – no Janine, no Mary, not even much of Mrs Hudson, and for once Mycroft had kept his long nose out of their business, too. They’d had a lot of quiet nights. Comfortable times. It had been – nice is too tame a word, John thinks. Good. Really good. If only he hadn’t been smarting inside and out over Mary the entire time, he would have been happier than he’d been since Sherlock had “died”. Instead, he’d sat there seething to himself at times, stinging with the betrayal of Mary’s lies, of the things she’d done – the largest of which was sitting across from him with gauze taped over the hole she’d shot in his chest. A hole that John can feel almost physically, as though the wound is his own. He could never put into words why it feels like Mary’s bullet in Sherlock’s heart feels like a bullet in his own, but it does. It did all autumn and it still does. 

He hadn’t wanted to go back to the flat. Sense of duty drove him, as well as guilt. She loves him. He knows that, and it should make things more all right than they are. She’s also pregnant with his child, and he isn’t the sort to run off and leave his pregnant wife behind. He’s trying to be the bigger person. 

Some days he just isn’t generous enough to be that man, and today has been one of those days. John shoves his hands deeper into his coat pockets and walks until the sun has begun to rise. 

***

Mary’s name is called. Another good reason for retiring from the field: it had started taking too long to adjust to the new identities all the time. It took a solid two weeks before she’d started looking up automatically when someone said “Mary”. This one was meant to be the last stop, though. She’d thought it sounded suitably British. Mary. Lots of women named Mary in England. Less so in the US. Her last American alias had been Jennifer. She’d liked being Jennifer. It shortened easily. Jen. Jenny. Mary is nice, too. It suits the sort of life she’d tried to pick, obviously with mixed success. If Sherlock had never come back from the seeming dead (and “seeming” is the key word there, isn’t it?), it all would have worked out. 

She follows the assistant into a room and acknowledges him with a smile when he says that the doctor will be with her shortly and that she can take off her coat and get comfortable. Once the door is closed, she does so. She’s assuming that her coat will be the only thing coming off this visit, as today is supposed to be about collecting the results. She booked the appointment for the middle of the day; John never comes home for lunch. The cycle was too long, and now that it’s January he’s given up on the bicycle and resorted to taking the bus again. Baker Street is much closer to the clinic and she wonders precisely how many times he’s gritted his teeth and resented the longer commute. 

It doesn’t matter. Her thoughts wander, taking in a poster featuring ailments of the gastro-intestinal system, recognising it from nursing college years ago. At least being in the third trimester has meant that the morning sickness finally eased off. John missed the worst of that during his four months at Baker Street. He’d also missed some of the stranger cravings, like the time when she’d eaten approximately two thousand pistachios within about twenty-four hours, her tongue stinging from the salt for days afterward. That doesn’t matter now, either. She feels curiously detached. 

The door opens and the doctor comes in. “Ms Morstan. Good afternoon,” he says, lifting her chart off the door, which he closes behind himself. 

“Good afternoon,” Mary says evenly. 

He pushes up his glasses, clears his throat, and sits down. “How are you doing?”

“Fine, thank you,” Mary says. She’s not interested in making small talk. She’s here for exactly one reason and hopes he’ll just get to the point. 

He takes her unspoken directive and clears his throat again. “Yes. Well. I’m afraid it’s… well, the results are quite conclusive.” He unclips a single sheet and passes it to her to read for herself. 

Mary takes it and scans. She closes her eyes briefly. She’d known in her gut all along. She and John had been so careful; he’d insisted on it. Said that having kids was a discussion for down the road. And her _one_ indiscretion had to have fallen exactly at the wrong time in her cycle. 

“Ms Morstan?” The doctor sounds concerned. She’s forgotten his name. (It doesn’t matter.) “Are you all right?”

She opens her eyes. “Fine.”

He hesitates. “Would you like a glass of water or s – ”

“I said I’m fine,” Mary says, cutting him off. “And it’s Mrs Watson.”

“My apologies.” He adjusts his glasses again. “Of course. Mrs Watson. Speaking of which… may I ask, do you plan on informing Mr Watson?”

This part is easy, at least. “No.” It’s short. 

This produces another painful pause as he looks down at her chart again. “Are you… this does affect – ”

“It won’t affect him. He won’t ever know.” Mary is curt. 

Another hesitation. “But when your daughter is born…it won’t be evident at the outset, quite likely, but certainly as she grows. Wouldn’t it be best for your husband to know now?”

Mary shakes her head and hears the short, bitter laugh escape before she can help it. “He would leave me,” she says. “I refuse to allow that to happen. He won’t know. My ex – uh, the father, that is – looks rather a lot like my husband. It won’t be evident enough that he’ll ever realise.” Sherlock is another matter, she realises, but she can deal with that down the road, if necessary. 

The doctor clearly doesn’t like this. “Well, it is your decision,” he admits, with great reluctance. “I just feel that – ”

“I don’t care what you feel about it,” Mary informs him briefly. She gets to her feet – no easy task these days – and passes the sheet back to him. “I don’t need this.”

He looks up at her over his glasses. “You don’t want to keep it, just in case it should come up… not now, perhaps, but… in the future? Just in case. It can be helpful to have documentation for… legal purposes.”

He’s implying that John will leave her and this hardly improves her mood. “There will be no ‘legal purposes’,” Mary tells him. She picks up her coat and walks out of the office, leaving him stewing in practically-audible frustration. Whatever. It’s none of his business. 

Out on the pavement, Mary looks around before getting into the car. Old habits die hard. Once the motor’s switched on, she begins to drive aimlessly, letting her thoughts wander. She finds a road near the Thames and follows it until she winds up in a disgusting bit of disused factories and turns away from the river. She wonders if she should tell David and decides against that, too. He’d be horrified anyway (though it had been he who’d insisted against using a condom, and since she’d been on birth control, she’d agreed, foolishly), and she didn’t want him having any part in raising the baby, anyway. Or in having him around at all. It had been a moment of weakness, nothing more. She’d only invited him to the wedding out of pity – and, as Sherlock had so kindly pointed out, because her side of the church had been looking thin. 

The only thing holding her marriage together at the moment is a pack of lies – lies that John desperately wants to keep in place. He’s too much of a coward to face the truth about who she is, and he won’t want to know about this any more than he wants to know about any of the rest of it, so she’ll just add this to the pile of things that John will never know. 

She rather thinks he doesn’t deserve to know the truth, anyway. If he can’t accept her for who she really is, then what’s one more lie? He’ll never suspect, and the first moment that he holds a baby whom he firmly believes to be his own flesh and blood in his arms, he’ll never even consider another alternative. He’ll buy the lie because he wants to believe it, just like all the rest. 

Still. One more complication. Just what she didn’t need. Mary turns the car back toward civilised parts of the city and goes to find a bakery or something, somewhere busy and loud where she can get a sticky pastry and a decent cup of coffee and let the noise drown out her thoughts. She just needs a bit of time to get her head settled before she sees John again. Things are already so rocky between them and she doesn’t want to go home before she’s managed to organise her thoughts, get it all sorted out. 

When she finally does go home, John is already there, frowning at his laptop. He barely looks up when she comes in and doesn’t even ask where she’s been. Mary stays in the doorway and looks at him for a moment, then decides to just be relieved (or resigned? She can’t tell) that he hasn’t said anything. He’s got Queen blaring from the stereo. She goes and shuts it off without a word to John, then goes into the bedroom to lie down for a bit. 

***

John finds himself stuck in front of the doors to CAM Global Media, unable to pull his feet off the pavement. He’s only been here once before, a night that was up there among the very worst of his life. He’d thought that Sherlock was going to die again, spent all night with his clammy hands pressed to the window of the operating theatre, his mouth and eyes horribly dry. Thinking of it reminds John of why he’s here. He’s got a meeting. He steels himself, then pushes through the doors. The security desk pages upstairs and directs him to wait in the ground-floor café, as he’d requested. He doesn’t have any desire to go back upstairs. Not ever. 

As he waits for Janine, he thinks of the cut on her head, of the unconscious white supremacist security guard. The disabled security system. All Mary. His thoughts blur together, mingling with the vague ambient noise of the people wandering through the foyer, of the bland jazz playing out of the café’s speakers. 

“John.”

Startled, he looks up and Janine is standing there in front of him. Aside from their brief moment while she was mostly unconscious, he hasn’t really seen her since another very short encounter just after she’d broken up with Sherlock at the hospital. Well, if you call could it a break-up when it wasn’t a real relationship. John clears his throat and forces down the welling of antipathy that comes bubbling up. It has nothing to do with her and everything to do with Sherlock, he knows. She was the innocent in this. “Janine. Hi.” He gestures awkwardly at the chair across from him and she sits without another word. “Er, thanks for meeting with me. And thanks for, uh, coming down here.”

“Sure,” Janine says, easily enough. She sounds slightly wary, but not unfriendly. She’s wearing a simply-cut but clearly expensive red linen dress with tasteful jewellery and she looks nice. “What can I do for you?”

“Er, can I get you a coffee or something?” John tries. 

“Thanks, I’m good.” She waits, hands folded together on the table. 

“How are you doing?” John asks, feeling he should at least make the effort. He gestures toward her head. “Get over the concussion all right?”

Janine’s lips tighten a little. “Fine, yeah,” she says, still rather wary. 

“Good, good,” John says, feeling like an idiot. In theory this meeting seemed like a better idea than it does at the moment. He leans forward, putting his own hands together on the table. “Look, er, I don’t suppose you were able to, uh, the thing I asked about…”

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” Janine says. She puts her hand on her small white purse. “It’s here. What do you need it for? Only I’m not supposed to let it leave the property. The estate’s still being processed and all.”

John holds out his hand. “Would it be all right if I were to just… have a look? I just want to check the call log.” He’s already checked Mary’s phone, when she was in the shower one evening. There was nothing there, so he thought to check Magnussen’s phone, if he could possibly get his hands on it. 

Janine reaches into the purse and withdraws a mobile, but seems reluctant to hand it over. “Why?”

John takes a deep breath. “It’s about the night that you and he were attacked,” he says. 

She doesn’t move. “He didn’t press charges. There was nothing to go on.”

“Yes, I know,” John says. He doesn’t want to tell her that it was Mary, somehow. “It’s to do with how Sherlock got shot. Someone called Emergency Services and I’m trying to sort out who it was. That’s all. I just want to see if the call was made from this phone, and if so, when.”

Janine weighs this, then nods and gives him the phone. “Not sure how much battery life it’ll have,” she warns as John turns it on. “Though I suppose he’d have had a charger upstairs somewhere.”

“It won’t take long,” John promises, and waits for the screen to finish loading. He brings up the call log and goes back to the night that Sherlock was shot. Sure enough, there’s one entry for nine-nine-nine made at seven-fourteen in the evening. So: someone called from this phone, but it still could have been Mary. Although even if it was, it doesn’t necessarily mean that she intended Sherlock to survive. If Sherlock’s theory is correct, she just wanted to get John off the premises. Still. It matters. He thinks. He shuts the phone off and gives it back to Janine. “Thanks,” he says. 

She raises her dark brows at him. “So, did Mr Magnussen make the call?”

“Not sure,” John admits. “There was a call made from this phone, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it was him.”

“True,” Janine says, as though she hadn’t considered that. She tosses her fringe out of her eyes. “That it, then?”

“Yeah.” He fidgets. “Thanks for doing this.”

“Sure.” Janine puts the phone away and stands up. “How’s Sherlock?”

“Good,” John says automatically. “Yeah. Fine. All, er, all better.” He indicates his chest region, meaning the shot. 

She nods, not looking at him. “Well. Good, then. I’d best be off. Lots to do.”

“Who are you working for now?” John asks, curious. 

She makes an it’s-very-complicated sort of gesture and says, “There’s a new CEO. I’m assisting him while everything shuffles around. It’s all a bit mixed up right now because of the estate and that. But business as usual, right? I’ve got to get back upstairs.”

“Right, yeah,” John says. “Thanks again.”

She’s already walking away, probably not having loved the interaction with the best friend of the man who proposed to her after three weeks of dating, which she had unbelievably fallen for. He knows she’s made her thousands off her revenge, but he’s willing to bet it still smarts. He knows how addictive Sherlock can be, after all. 

He gets up and leaves the building with relief. Outside he takes out his own phone and makes a call. Speed dial. 

“Hello?” Lestrade answers after seven rings, sounds as rushed and harried as always. 

“Greg, hi, it’s John Watson,” he says.

“John! What’s going on?” Lestrade sounds immediately worried. 

“Nothing, nothing like that,” John says hastily. “I just need a favour, but when you’ve got a minute…”

Lestrade sounds like he’s out in traffic somewhere. “Sure, what’s up? Depending what it is, of course.”

“I just need to get hold of some phone records for Emergency Services,” John tells him.

“Hang on. Writing it down. Okay, go.” Lestrade waits. 

“The night of August nineteenth,” John says. “A call was made at seven-fourteen in the evening from this number.” He recites Magnussen’s number. “Got that?”

“Yup. Go on.”

“I need to know whether the caller was male or female.”

There’s a short silence on the other end. “What’s this about, then?”

“Nothing,” John says quickly. “But it’s important. Personal,” he adds, as though that will help.

“This have to do with who shot Sherlock?” Lestrade sounds deeply sceptical. He has always suspected that both Sherlock and John know and have been holding out on him this entire time. 

John hesitates. Sherlock had very particularly not wanted Scotland Yard involved. “Maybe,” he hedges. “Listen, do you think it would be possible, to find that out?”

“Oh, definitely,” Lestrade says, sounding unconcerned. “Might have to wait a couple of hours, though; I’m out at a crime scene. Be back in the office this evening, probably. I could find out for you then. You in a rush for it?”

“No,” John reassures him. “Tonight or tomorrow would be great. Whenever you can.”

“Sure thing.”

“What’s the case?” John asks, curious. 

“Nothing,” Lestrade says. “Simple domestic shooting, no mystery. Nothing for Sherlock.”

John pauses. “Right,” he says. “Well – if you do need him, he could probably do with a case.”

“If one comes up, I’ll let him know,” Lestrade promises. “Got to run. I’ll be in touch about that call.”

“Thanks.” John hangs up. 

With that done, he puts his phone away. He’s at loose ends now; he was supposed to be at the clinic today. Mary thinks he’s there, at any rate. Spontaneously he decides to go to Baker Street. Should he text Sherlock first? It feels ridiculously formal, given that he was living there again until three weeks ago. No, he’ll just go over. John heads into the Tube and takes the first train going toward Westminster. 

He hears the violin from the door. Sherlock will have heard and probably registered the sound of him coming in, though that’s not always a guarantee. John stays where he is for a moment, leaning back against the door and feeling the invariable sense of coming home that he always feels upon coming back here. The slightly musty scent of the old house, the familiar quality of the way the dust motes filter down through the late afternoon light to the chipped tile floor. This is home. This has been home more than any other place he’s ever lived, including the unhappy council flat where he grew up. The music is familiar, too. He knows he’s heard Sherlock play it before but can’t place it. He takes off his shoes and creeps quietly up the first flight of stairs, skipping the one that squeaks so that he can hear it better. Leans against the wall of the landing and closes his eyes, letting the music wash over him. It’s slow and terribly sad, somehow. Not German. Not Russian. French, maybe? He doesn’t know classical composers well enough to tell one from another, but the lyrical sweetness in the melancholy puts him in mind of French music. As he listens, he thinks of how Sherlock played that autumn, often because John asked him to. A mixture of styles and pieces, always John’s favourites. There are some that he knows and will always ask for; others are new. He’s thought of Sherlock learning new pieces and bringing them out only after they’re performable, practising only when John was out. To impress him. He always knew that, and he made an easy audience, he knew. Yet Sherlock never seemed to tire of watching for his reaction, as though the performance meant nothing until John’s words or even just his face let Sherlock know what he had thought. Always the hope, the nearly-concealed shadow of fear of having disappointed, of John not having liked the piece or the way he had played it. It was the same thing with his deductions – Sherlock _knew_ they were always brilliant, but it was as though it didn’t mean anything until John said it out loud, acknowledged it. Sherlock had always been told far too much that he was a freak, rude, sociopathic, and worse. Not nearly enough being validated in all the other things that he is, too: phenomenally, staggeringly intelligent, incredibly perceptive and thoughtful when he wants to be, far too sensitive to really be a psychopath. Tremendously funny by times. And passionate. John stands there, letting the music pull his own heart from his body and quietly acknowledges to himself that he knows. Not just about Sherlock. About himself. 

The last note dies away, a pianissimo hanging suspended, barely there, until Sherlock’s bow lifts and the music stops. Footsteps cross the sitting room a moment later. 

“John.”

John opens his eyes. Sherlock is at the top of the stairs, violin and bow in hand, looking down at him. He clears his throat. “Er, hi,” he says, hoping his voice will function properly. 

Sherlock doesn’t move. “What are you doing here?”

John gives a feeble shrug. “Just dropped by to say hello. That all right?”

Sherlock’s face is shadowed by the uneven light in the corridor, but he shrugs and turns to go back inside. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

John takes that as permission to go on up, so he does. Sherlock is in the kitchen, filling the kettle at the sink. John goes to the cupboard and gets out two cups. It feels both right and wrong. Wrong because he doesn’t live here and shouldn’t just be so comfortable with going into what are technically someone else’s cupboards, and right because he still thinks of these as his cups – the mismatched set all completely familiar and used and washed and rewashed hundreds of times. Mary’s set is all white and new and unchipped and impersonal. John finds Sherlock’s large mug with the diagram of the _Apis florea_ , labelled with all the proper scientific names for the parts of the body and the wings, and his own RAMC mug, which he never bothered moving to Mary’s in the first place. It never would have matched her things and she would have put it on a high shelf somewhere and hidden it away. It seems apt, thinking of it now. He turns away from the cupboard and sets the mugs down on the table. 

Sherlock has sat down in one of the chairs, one knee crossed over the other, his face turned slightly away as though trying to pretend John isn’t there. John studies him as furtively as possible. Sherlock looks tired, he thinks, but it’s more than that. The silence stretches out between them. 

John clears his throat and tries to make small talk. “So, how’ve you been?”

“Fine.” The word is out of his mouth almost before John’s finished his last word, which makes it sound as though that was what he had intended to say regardless of what John’s question. His spine is stiff and he’s still looking away. 

“No case on?”

“Evidently not.” Sherlock glances near him, though not directly at him, then softens his clipped response with, “Seems the city’s criminals are all avoiding the cold weather.”

“That _is_ supposed to be a good thing,” John points out. 

Sherlock shrugs and studies his fingernails. “And you?” he asks, ignoring this. 

The kettle switches itself off. John gets up on instinct and goes to bring it to the table, pouring water over the loose tea Sherlock’s already put in the teapot. “Nothing much,” he says. He doesn’t know exactly why he doesn’t want to tell Sherlock he’s digging about Mary’s call. Perhaps he’s simply tired of both of them telling him how to interpret that night. “Lots of colds at the clinic. Typical January.”

Sherlock gives a slight smile that very nearly fails. He tosses John a wry look, silently acknowledging the pointlessness and difficulty of this conversation. 

John sits down again and tries another tack. “What were you playing?” he asks. “You’ve played it before, I know, but not for a long time…” He trails off. Sherlock’s playing felt so private in a way; perhaps he shouldn’t be talking about it. Letting on, aloud, that he’d heard it, the fact that Sherlock obviously knows notwithstanding. 

Sherlock doesn’t shy away from it, though. “It was the Meditation from _Thaïs_. By Massenet,” he says, for John’s edification. 

“Ah.” John nods. “I thought it was French, maybe.”

“Excellent guess.”

“I also thought it sounded… very sad,” John adds, much quieter. 

Sherlock doesn’t respond to this, staring at a spot on the floor beside the table. 

The tension is awful. John makes himself break it. He wants to ask about the root of Sherlock’s sadness, but somehow can’t bring himself to do it. It isn’t because Sherlock has thrown up all of his walls, the ways he used to do. He’s sitting there across the table, walls all lowered, all of his vulnerability and sadness there to see, as though he’s naked with it and not even trying to hide himself, and John can’t bear to be the one to reach over and prod at that very vulnerability. The merciful option is to change the subject, so he does. “I saw Stamford last week,” he says instead. “We had a drink or two, last Thursday, I think.”

For a moment Sherlock doesn’t move, his expressive lips parted slightly, the hollows of his cheeks exaggerated by the way the light is slanting down from the hanging light fixture. Then he stirs. “I remember,” he says. “You texted me.”

“Right, yeah,” John says. “You didn’t text back.”

“I suppose I must have been busy,” Sherlock says. He doesn’t make eye contact, as though hoping that John won’t call attention to this, examine it too closely, and picks up the teapot to pour the tea. 

John looks around for a clean-ish spoon and there aren’t any on the table, clean or dirty, so he gets up to get one, get the milk out of the fridge. “Milk still good?” he asks lightly. 

“Should be. I just bought it today.” Sherlock tips sugar into his tea directly from the sugar dish and takes the spoon that John holds out to him to stir it as John inspects the due date on the milk. He sniffs it for good measure and pours some into his tea before passing it to Sherlock. “Thank you.” Sherlock stirs and passes John the spoon. “My brother came to visit today. You just missed him.”

“Thank God!” John is heartily vocal about this, and Sherlock laughs. That dispels the tension at last, and finally things relax and start to feel more normal. It’s weird, just visiting. If he still lived here, they wouldn’t need an official topic to discuss; they would both just be doing their own thing, checking their email or watching telly or whatever. It feels artificial, visiting one another as though they’re the most casual of friends, barely close at all. 

That’s what rankles, he realises. Any indication by anyone that he and Sherlock are not as close as he prefers to think bothers him enormously. Janine’s insinuation that only she really knew what Sherlock was like, as though after three weeks, anyone could. Mary’s repeated insinuations that John is regularly deceived by Sherlock, no matter how innocently, or that he has no idea what Sherlock is really up to behind his back. She’d been so smug after Sherlock’s lapse after the honeymoon, suggesting that perhaps it happened more often than John even knew. He _hated_ that. He knows Sherlock, damn it. Knows him better than anyone. Mycroft does the same thing, slyly planting the notion that John is still out in the dark while the two of them know whatever it is that they know, that John could never keep up no matter how hard he tries. He’s well aware that he feels immensely possessive of Sherlock. He couldn’t hide his jealousy over Janine in the slightest.

It’s odd, he thinks. He has never felt this jealous about a woman he’s loved before, and before Sherlock, there was only one man of any particular significance that way, and he wouldn’t go so far as to call that love. With James Sholto, it had been a bit of a superior-officer infatuation. Nothing more. There are certain things that he can admit that the two of them have in common – James and Sherlock, that is, a certain emotional reserve (though Sherlock’s is more easily broken down than he would prefer to believe), a certain formality of bearing. Not that he ever really called Sholto by his first name anyway; it was always Major or on occasion his surname, but usually just “sir”. It was only after the incident when he’d tried reaching out to his disgraced former commander that he’d switched to calling the man by his first name. And away from Kandahar, away from the action, somehow the light of the infatuation had died a natural death. Pity and reality both did their part in squelching it quite thoroughly. He’d never thought of it again, only invited him to the wedding as a way of reaching out to a lonely, bitter man who refused to seek help for himself. But Sherlock – he never once stopped thinking of Sherlock. He never does, present tense. And it, whatever “it” is, never died when the action did. He’s never really looked at it straight on and acknowledged to himself what it is. What it’s always been. That it still is what it is, that nothing ever died with Sherlock’s supposed death or with his own marriage. But as Sherlock tells him about the degradations of the liver he’s got in the fridge, John looks at him over his mug and thinks, _yes_. 

A simple, immensely private acknowledgement, but now that he’s made it, he’ll never be able to shy away from seeing it, never be able to ignore it. It feels heavy. He’s married. They’re expecting. His marriage is a complete façade; not a shred of reality to it, but he’s said he’ll try, hasn’t he? For the sake of the baby, at the very least. And because Mary loves him, and he loves something that he once imagined that she was. The truth is that he doesn’t know her and doesn’t want to. He knows who it was he thought he loved, but he’s been shown as brutally as possible that she isn’t that, which leaves only the void of his deliberate lack of knowledge. He knows that she’s right, that he wouldn’t love the person that she really is. He doesn’t want to know that person and he can see that this is an inherently flawed basis. A ticking countdown to an inevitable end, baby or no baby. He knows the face of the person he’s been in a relationship with for over a year and a half now, but the things he knows on the surface have no connection to the real person below. He knows her laugh, certainly, but not necessarily which aspects of life give her joy, make her truly happy. He knows the colour of her eyes but not the name on her birth certificate. He knows her body, knows how it feels against and around his, but he doesn’t know her past, her demons, her soul. 

And he does know Sherlock. Knows him nearly as well as he knows himself, flaws and gifts both, and loves him. He’s always known that, just never put it into these particular terms, even to himself. He can accept who Sherlock is, what he’s like. He knows it all and still craves him like a drug, after all this time.

Sherlock gets up to put the milk away. John takes their two cups over to the sink, then goes to stand behind Sherlock. He takes a breath and puts a hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t know what he wants to say, but there’s something pushing up from the depths of his being that wants putting into words. “Sherlock…”

Sherlock stiffens as though John has just electrocuted him, back straightening and going rigid. “Don’t.” It’s sharp, a command. 

Startled, John removes his hand. “I – ” he stammers. “Sher – I – ”

“ _Don’t,_ ” Sherlock repeats, the word a snarl. “Don’t touch me!”

“Okay,” John says, stung. He’s hurt, more so than he wants to admit. “Sorry. I’ll just – ”

“Yes,” Sherlock interrupts him, still standing there with his back to John, the fridge door open in his hand. The cold air is spilling downward and over John’s socked feet. “I think you should go.”

All of the camaraderie that came cautiously back as they were talking has vanished, the atmosphere as cold as the air escaping from the fridge. John nods and goes to put his shoes on, his mouth tight. He pulls on his coat and tries to think of what to say. “I’ll, er… can I call you soon?”

The fridge door closes but Sherlock doesn’t move, still leaning against it with his right hand. After a moment he nods. “If you want to,” he says, extremely stiff. 

“I’ll always want to,” John says, his voice low. 

Sherlock makes a sound that John cannot identify at all. After a bit, he shakes his head. “Go home, John,” he says, the bitterness in his voice undeniable. 

_Home_. The word is like a slap in the face. _Go home, because you’ve made your choice. This isn’t your home any more. You left and now the doors are closed. You’ve chosen to make yourself a stranger here and I’m only acknowledging your choice. Go home._ John stumbles blindly toward the stairs and somehow gets himself out onto the pavement, the heavy door of 221B closing firmly behind him. He starts to walk. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but it’s not to the flat. Perhaps if he just walks and concentrates on walking, he’ll regain control of himself, of the emotion spiking out of him on all sides. The rage, the despair, the tightness in his throat threatening to burst out of him in furious screaming, or worse, tears. He’ll just have to walk all night if need be. 

***

Mary swears under her breath as the loop of wool slips off the end of the needle. This is stupid. She nudges the sensor pad of her laptop to wake the screen up to re-read the last direction. _Wrap the yarn around the right needle counter-clockwise so that it sits in between the two needles._ Whatever that means. She tries again. It looks sort of right, just a bit crooked. 

The downstairs door opens and then closes, then John’s footsteps are coming up the stairs. When the inside door opens, she doesn’t look up. “Hello.”

“Hi.” He’s short. He’s always short with her these days. 

“How was work?”

“Fine.” He goes into the kitchen and comes back in with a beer, making a beeline for his laptop. He spares her a glance and a frown on his way to his precious armchair. “What are you doing?” 

It’s not quite belligerent, but it’s not quite a friendly inquiry, either. Mary doesn’t look at him. “Knitting. Obviously.”

“Knitting?” he repeats, incredulous. “Since when do _you_ knit?”

“Since today.” She refuses to rise to the bait. “I’m learning.”

He snorts. “With what, wikipedia?”

“It’s a teach-yourself-to-knit site.” She continues to ignore his rudeness, focusing on not dropping the next stitch. 

John stares at her for another second, then shakes his head and goes to sit down. “What are you knitting, then? A handkerchief?”

“It’s going to be a scarf, actually,” Mary says, forcing down her annoyance. 

“It’s too short to be a scarf.”

“That’s because I just started. And it’s not supposed to be all that long. It’s for the baby.”

That shuts him up, as she knew it would. He opens his laptop and starts typing. Quickly. Well, for him. She offered to teach him how to type properly once and he nearly took her head off. And that was before Sherlock even came back from the apparent dead. Her people had strongly suspected he wasn’t really dead, but they also never thought he’d turn up in England again. Seemed some of them were following the same theories and leads that the loser who ran Sherlock’s fan club (Anderson, was it?) had, tracing the progress of various mysteriously solved cases through Asia and Europe. She hadn’t said anything to John then. Why should she? When she’d met John, he’d been as low as he’d ever been. She’d been frankly shocked to learn that the reason for his depression was the suicide of his disgraced best friend a year and a half prior. From the way he’d been acting, one would have thought it had taken place a month earlier, not eighteen months. She’d known who he was, of course. John Watson: the sidekick of the so-called great Sherlock Holmes. She’d known of Holmes’ connection to Moriarty, of Moriarty’s murder on the roof of the hospital. His people had had to move quickly to get the body before the police found it. As far as the world knew, Moriarty was still alive and well, just not bothering anyone these days. Those on the underside of the world knew better. She’d lived and thrived in that world for years and years. When it comes down to it, Mary isn’t even sure if she really understands what it means to have a life on the topside, being open and honest. Only honesty isn’t really an option she’s been given, is it?

She’d met John at his clinic, but that wasn’t an accident. She’d seen his pictures, heard the rumours of his bounty should Sherlock turn up alive after all. Someone had paid her to track him down and establish that he wasn’t in contact with Sherlock any more. The lack of contact was absolute, and once she’d got to know John, know the depth of his grief, it made it all the easier to hate Sherlock on his behalf. But honestly, she’d liked John grieving. He was so pliable, so lonely, so desperate to find something to cling to after Sherlock had cut him adrift. She’d been all too happy to be that person. Be his life raft. He’d stayed that way, occasionally sad, occasionally angry – on which occasions she happily joined him in abusing Sherlock (although she’d discovered early that there were limits and that he got angry if she said too much; apparently only _he_ was allowed to be angry with Sherlock’s memory). Occasionally he was happy, but the shadow of sadness had never left his eyes. Sherlock had always been there, the silent third member of their relationship. Well – not “member” so much as voyeur, the spectre that stalked them, kept John angry and just unhappy enough that Mary could comfort him. It was a bit backwards, but it had worked well enough. Once Sherlock had decided to come back, she’d had to think quickly to figure out how to make his living presence work as well as his dead one had. 

But John changed. He became vastly less pliable, or rather, all of his willingness to accommodate had transferred from her back to Sherlock. She came to realise how much of a stand-in for Sherlock she’d been all along. And he’d been conflicted, far too much so for a man who calls himself heterosexual and insists that he and Sherlock had only ever been flatmates and friends. Best friends, he’ll usually add, as though that justifies how overly close he is to Sherlock, how co-dependent they are. She’s never even remotely considered Sherlock a romantic or sexual rival – John is straight, despite his dependency on Sherlock. Regardless, she hates it. Hates it enough to consider removing Sherlock permanently. She really should have made sure that he died when she shot him. It’s a mistake she won’t make a second time, that much is certain. 

“I can sew, you know,” she says suddenly. 

John stops scrolling down his screen. “What?” He hasn’t looked up. 

“I said I can sew.” Mary watches for his reaction. 

John gives a sort of yeah-so-what shrug. “And?”

“I can make clothes. Disguises. It always used to come in handy.” 

There, that’s done it: his face darkens in sudden anger and he finally looks at her. “Why the hell are you telling me this?”

Mary shrugs back and resumes knitting. “Just thought you might like to know. It’s a skill I have. That’s all. It could come in useful.”

John jerks his gaze back to his laptop and refuses to answer, brow furrowed. 

“I can also do quite a convincing American accent,” she says, dropping the English one she’s been using for the past five years in favour of her original accent. “You know. In case we ever need to do deep-cover work over there.”

“Stop it,” John says through clenched teeth. “We’ve talked about it. I don’t want to hear it.”

“You said that the problems of my future were your privilege,” Mary reminds him ruthlessly. “There could be problems like this. I have a history. Multiple criminal records.”

“Shut. Up!” John slams his laptop closed, his face red. He’s on his feet, fists clenched. “Just shut up!”

Mary looks at him for a long moment, the tension between them practically crackling. Then she drops her eyes and suddenly wishes for about ten pints of pistachio ice cream. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I shouldn’t have – I’m sorry, John.” She isn’t, but she is sorry that he’s so angry. She shouldn’t have pushed it so far. She’s getting damned tired of pretending to be someone she isn’t, though, and she misses the way he used to be, just so grateful to have her around at all. Now it always feels like he can barely tolerate her. 

John takes four or five audible deep breaths, consciously calming himself. “I told you I don’t want to hear about all that,” he says, looking anywhere but at her. “All that history – I don’t want to know it.”

“What _do_ you want to know?” Mary asks, directing the question at her belly as she strokes it. The baby is moving and it’s uncomfortable. Perhaps she’s craving pistachio ice cream, too. “Really, John, what? Maybe you need to tell me where all the lines are. Where the boundaries between truth and fiction need to fall, in order for you to stay happy.”

This makes him even less happy, his eyes dark and angry and troubled, the bags under his them heavier than ever. She wonders if he’s been sleeping. He was home last night but came in late and slept on the sofa. The night before he claimed he’d been out walking all night. _With Sherlock?_ she’d asked, and he’d nearly bitten her head off with his snapped negation. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says shortly. “Just – leave it, can’t you?” He stalks off toward the bathroom and closes the door firmly and after a bit she hears the sound of the shower running. 

Mary looks down at the thing she’s been trying to knit. It’s lumpy and the stitches are uneven. It’s as much as failure as this marriage is turning out to be. 

***

John wakes in the middle of the night with a start. He’s on his back on the sofa, heart pounding. Was it a dream? What woke him? He can’t remember what he was dreaming but has a vague notion that it had something to do with Sherlock. Of course. What doesn’t? 

He gets up and pads quietly into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water to calm himself, moving through the space in the dark so as not to wake Mary. He downs the water, then goes into the guest loo to relieve himself. His reflection looks awful. His hair is sticking up every which way and his stubble is blurring the lines of his jaw. His eyes are the worst; giant, sagging bags adorn each one, the wrinkles deep and dark, making him look haggard and tired and old. There’s more grey in his hair than there was a week ago, he’d swear it. Not that it matters; he’ll never need to look attractive for anyone again, it seems. 

Mary had come into the sitting room in her dressing gown as he’d settled down for another night on the sofa. She was wearing pyjama pants, a t-shirt, and her blue dressing gown, tied above the swell of her belly, one hand resting just below the knotted sash. “You’re not coming to bed?” she asked, a wistful note in her voice. 

John had gestured at where he was sitting – on the sofa in his pyjamas, a pile of blankets to his left. “No,” he said, in a tone meant to indicate that this should have been obvious. 

Mary bit her lip. “You slept out here last night.”

“Yeah.” His tone said, _And what of it?_ , a challenge. 

Her brow collapsed into a mishmash of sad little lines and he almost felt badly. Almost. For a second she looked angry, but it passed. John waited for her to mention the fact that they haven’t had sex since before she shot Sherlock. The best he’d been able to muster was holding her in bed, but his desire for her had disappeared the night her bullet had punctured Sherlock’s liver and heart. But she didn’t bring it up. “Okay,” she’d said instead, resigned, then gone wordlessly back into the bedroom. 

John had stretched out on the sofa and refused to let himself feel guilty. She’d shot his best friend, for God’s sake. Of course he was angry with her. More than angry. And it’s more than his best friend she shot. She shot his other half. His partner. The man he couldn’t live without – can’t live without. Who made it rather clear at their last meeting two days ago, that he doesn’t particularly want to have John around any more. Not while things are like this, at least. 

He takes himself back to the sofa and climbs wearily back under the blankets. He’s miserable. There is no avoiding this obvious fact. Utterly miserable. Now that he is fully aware of how he feels, he knows exactly what he wants. It’s as though he’s been half-asleep all this time, willfully blind to the fact that he wanted Sherlock from the start, that his feelings had always been significantly over the platonic line. He _had_ known; he’d just got too good at rationalising it away. _He’s a genius; everyone’s impressed by him_ , or _He doesn’t feel things that way_ (and therefore John shouldn’t either, not with Sherlock?), or _I am not gay_. As though that changed anything. When confronted with it at Battersea Station and Irene’s knowing eyes, he hadn’t even been able to deny it. He’d stopped trying. And then Sherlock had died and he thought he’d never feel whole again. He never _has_ felt whole again, no matter what he’s tried to tell himself. The fact is that he has loved Sherlock for a very long time. Now that he’s stopped pretending otherwise, he knows precisely how much he’s desired him in secret, too. His yearning for Sherlock has been swamping him from the moment he was on the landing, held in the grip of Sherlock’s violin and knowing that the heartbreak and unfulfilled love pouring into the music wasn’t on Sherlock’s side alone. And yet he’s trapped here, isn’t he. This is as good as it’s ever going to get. Maybe when he gets desperate enough, he’ll be able to fuck her again, but he knows that the love is gone forever. It can only ever be making do. He knows very well that he’ll never be happy with her again. Having a child together isn’t enough. It doesn’t solve what she’s done. Or not done. 

John picks up his phone from the floor and reads Lestrade’s text from the previous night for the hundredth time. 

_Sorry to be late getting back to you._  
 _Caller was a middle-aged man with_  
 _a European accent of some sort. Hope_  
 _that helps, let me know if you need_  
 _anything or if you find anything. Greg_

She never called. She never fucking called. Sherlock had invented that lie for her, as a cover, and Mary had accepted it and let John believe it, waited for him to swallow it down. He understands that Sherlock gave her a cover because he was worried about how she might react if John left her then. She was pregnant and cornered and a trained killer: bad combination. He understands that that was why Sherlock had set up the revelation the way he had, too. He’d told John, in the weeks that had followed at Baker Street, that he’d known John would put the pieces together himself, eventually, and be angry at Sherlock for not having told him. So he’d told him. John gets all that, and he appreciates it. He’s got so sick of being left in the dark all the time. But this one he figured out for himself. There’s no redemption to be had here. Mary clearly meant for Sherlock to die. 

The question is what to do with it. Does he stay or does he go? If he goes, where does he go, precisely? At the time of Sherlock’s rejection of his touch to the shoulder, he was sure it was because Sherlock had feelings for him and didn’t want John instigating something while he’s still with Mary. Now he isn’t as sure. What if Sherlock is angry at him for having left? What if it was simply that he’s still not interested in any of that? It’s possible that John got it wrong, after all. God knows it wouldn’t be the first time he’s got something wrong. 

He sighs out loud. He’s sure of himself, at least – of what he wants, but he has no idea how to go about getting it. John closes his eyes and thinks of Sherlock, thinks of being able to walk back into Baker Street and announce that he’s home and not leaving. But there’s the child. 

John tosses and turns until dawn, finally dozing off around six, an hour before his alarm goes off for work. He stumbles through the morning, then finally tells Karen, the receptionist, that he’s ill and needs to take the afternoon off. He pulls out his spare key to Harry’s, lets himself into her tiny flat, and naps on her couch. She normally gets home from work around six, so he leaves her a note and lets himself out shortly before that. 

London is bleak and grey, the sky overcast, mushy snow melting under his shoes as he walks. He finds something to eat after awhile, then walks and walks and walks until suddenly his head clears and he makes a decision. John stops and looks around, and hails the first taxi he sees. 

Sherlock is in the sitting room when John runs up the stairs, breathless. “Sherlock!”

He’s on the sofa, rapidly sitting up when John bursts in. He looks startled. “John – what – ”

“Oh, thank God you’re home,” John says in relief, the words coming unfiltered from his mouth. “I just – I wanted to see you.”

He’s chickened out, or at least he’s realised he shouldn’t just say it, not yet. Sherlock isn’t buying it, staring at John from across the room. “What’s going on?” he asks, eyes narrowing. 

John gesticulates expansively and vaguely. “I just – I don’t know,” he says lamely. He thinks it’s maybe not the time to mention what a disaster everything is with Mary at the moment but realises he hasn’t thought of anything else to say instead. On impulse, he says, “You’re not really angry with me, are you?” 

Sherlock’s shoulders collapse a little and he looks down at the coffee table. “Should I be?”

“Responding to a question with a question,” John points out. “You always say that’s an evasion technique.” He walks into the centre of the room and waits for a real answer. 

A corner of Sherlock’s mouth quirks. “You remembered.”

“I’m not entirely stupid, you know.”

“I never said you were.” Sherlock lifts his face and meets his eyes unwaveringly. 

He still hasn’t answered his question. “So – it’s all right that I’m here?” John asks, letting it slide. 

“Of course it’s all right.” Sherlock’s eyes drop off to the side, breaking the contact. “You’re my best friend,” he adds quietly. 

A burst of something warm spreads through John’s chest. “And you’re mine,” he says. “Except…”

Sherlock’s face turns back to his, alert like prey scenting a predator. “Except what?”

John hesitates, then says it. It comes out low. “Except we both know it’s not just that, don’t we?”

Sherlock goes very still. “What?”

“I know you heard me.” John keeps his eyes on Sherlock’s face. 

“John…” He sounds as though he’s about to say something to negate it, as though he’ll dismiss it out of hand and then leave the room. 

“You know it and I know it,” he presses, not yielding an inch. “It’s always been more than that, hasn’t it.” It’s not a question. 

Sherlock makes a movement with his shoulders too jerky to be called a shrug. “Every friendship is unique, or so I’m told. Ours is what it is.”

“No.” John rejects this flat-out. 

Sherlock hesitates. “No?” It comes out ever so slightly uncertain. 

“No. Listen, Sherlock. Imagine you’re me for a second. Imagine you’ve just found conclusive proof that your murderous, lying wife did indeed mean for you to die that night in August. What would you have me to, hmm? I’m asking you: what do you want me to do?” John’s hands are on his hips. This is important. He needs to hear this. 

Sherlock passes a hand over the back of his head, an unsure gesture. “Have you actually got proof?”

“Yes.” John waits, impatient. 

“What did you find?” His eyes are sharp. 

“Does it matter?”

“Yes!” Sherlock says, as though it’s completely obvious and frustrating that John can’t see it. 

John’s lips press into a thin line. “I got hold of Magnussen’s phone and found out the call to Emergency Services was made from it. Janine got it for me, in fact.”

“That’s not conclu – ”

“And then,” John interrupts, “I got Lestrade to check their records, and he says it was a male voice that called in. Middle-aged, European accent of some sort. It was the only call made at that time, from any phone. And I’d already checked Mary’s, anyway. She hadn’t deleted her call log and there were no calls made from her phone to Emergency Services that night, either.” He says all this without taking his eyes from Sherlock’s. “I’d call that conclusive enough. She shot you and she didn’t bother calling for help. She meant to kill you. It’s as simple as that. I understand why _you_ lied to me about that, but not why she let you. Or rather, I do, and I hate it. She meant for you to die. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Sherlock looks cornered, his tongue coming out to wet his lower lip. “John…”

“You can’t, because you know I’m not,” John continues, relentless. “So the question is, now that we both know this and you know that I’m married to a killer who very clearly meant to add you to her illustrious list, what do you want me to do about it? You can’t save this marriage for me – it just isn’t possible. So what do you want me to do, now that we know what we know?”

Sherlock gets up and goes to the doorway of the kitchen, getting out of the line of John’s intent gaze. He’s moving agitatedly, pacing, dressing gown fluttering behind him. “You’re safer if you stay with her,” he says. His delivery is neutral but quick, as though parrying what John’s said. “And you’re expecting a child – ”

“I _know_ that, damn it!” John snaps. “I’m not asking how I’ll be safest. I’m asking what you _want_. Just a straight answer would be nice, for once!”

Sherlock rounds on him. “I don’t want to you to do what _I_ want!” he shouts, suddenly angry. “I want you to do what _you_ want!”

John stares at him for three seconds without breathing, and then his instincts kick in. He rushes at Sherlock, takes him by the face and kisses him, brutally hard. Sherlock’s response is immediate and equally violent, his mouth opening under John’s, kissing back with a desperation not unlike panic, their tongues pushing against each other’s, mouths biting in a hunger that can’t begin to be satisfied, and then Sherlock abruptly breaks it off. 

“ _No_ ,” he says, and pushes John away by the shoulders. 

“But – what – Sher – ” John is staring at him, confused. He tries to move in again, but Sherlock holds him off. 

“I said no!”

“ _Why?_ ” John demands. “We both – I don’t understand – ”

“Because you’re married,” Sherlock says through gritted teeth, and John realises with a shiver that Sherlock is angrier than he’s ever seen him. “And because I couldn’t stop myself if we did.”

John feels the fight seep out of him. “So you want me to leave her,” he says, to confirm. “You won’t let this happen until I have.”

“I want _you_ to want to leave her,” Sherlock corrects, jaw still clenched. He lets go of John’s shoulders, fists balling at his sides. “I won’t be the thing you do in secret, on the side. Have you running back and forth from her to me. It’s not fair to ask that of me. To expect it. To think you can just come home whenever you want to and do whatever you want to me. With me. I can’t – it doesn’t work that way, John.”

John swallows. Nods. “Okay.” His voice cracks and it comes out in a whisper. He clears his throat. “I see.”

“And,” Sherlock continues, looking at the floor, “I think I would prefer not to see you again, for now. Not with things the way they are. If it changes – but it’s too difficult, John. Don’t – I can’t – ” He stops. 

John swallows again. “I love you, you know,” he says, throat tight. 

Sherlock doesn’t say anything, the lines around his mouth stretched tight, lips parted slightly. What he’s thinking, John can’t discern. What a fucking mess, he thinks. 

“So – I’ll go, then,” he says. 

Sherlock nods. “Yes.” It’s just an acknowledgement. 

He wants to ask Sherlock if he loves him, too, but he thinks Sherlock might actually hit him if he does. Perhaps he was meant to deduce that this is more than evident given the entire conversation, and perhaps it is. Still. John tries to push down the lump in his throat. He turns and goes down the stairs and thinks that if Sherlock turns him away one more time, he won’t know where to leave himself. 

***

When Mary hears the doors, she’s actually surprised. John hasn’t been home in two days now and never answered the one text she sent. His steps are slow and measured, the movements of a man who is doing something that he is dreading. Is it just the coming home bit? When the door opens, she puts down her cup of tea on the kitchen table and goes around the corner. The look on his face says it all. He’s finally decided, then. Mary crosses her arms and waits. Waits for him to say it. To finally man up and tell her what he should have told her at Baker Street the night he’d found out who had shot Sherlock. That he doesn’t have the stomach for this, not even with a child hanging in the balance. That he won’t stay even for that, much less for her. So she waits. 

John pushes the door closed and turns to face her. He stops, seeing her face. He clears his throat. “Mary, I, er… I’ve got something to say.”

“I know,” Mary says. “Spit it out, then.”

John hesitates. “You know what it is?” He knows that she does. He winces slightly as he asks, at least. 

“I have a good idea,” she says, lips barely moving. She feels numb. 

He gestures between them. “I think it must be pretty obvious that, uh, that this isn’t working for me. I’m sorry. I just – ” He stops, and Mary waits for him to go on. When the silence continues to hang, she prompts him. 

“You just what?” 

John shakes his head. “I – ”

“You just can’t love me, even with the lies all in place,” Mary supplies when he cuts himself off again. “I know. I’ve known since you moved back in. Since Sherlock’s flight to Serbia was cancelled.”

He bristles at the mention of Sherlock’s name. “That has nothing to with – ”

“Don’t lie to me.” It’s cold. “It has – ”

“Wait a second,” John interrupts, temper flashing. “Don’t _lie_ to you? Do you have any idea how – you don’t get to tell _me_ that. And you know what, you’re right anyway: it does have a lot to do with Sherlock. You shot him. You meant to kill him. You never called Emergency Services. I know that now.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “What do you want, a medal? Sherlock figure that out for you?”

“No!” he snaps, obviously stung. “I found that out myself. Sherlock tried to save this marriage for me. He would have let us have that, despite the fact that you tried to kill him, and succeeded for at least a few minutes. I forgave you but you never asked for my forgiveness. I gave you a second chance when you never asked for one, and never deserved one. And I’m sorry. I know that you love me, and – ” He gestures toward her belly. “I know about all this, but I just can’t keep going like this. I want out. I’m sorry, Mary.”

Mary studies her fingernails and tries to pretend her hands aren’t shaking, her stomach in knots. Much as she feared and suspected it in the pit of her abdomen for the past two weeks at least, it’s still terrible to hear it out loud, hear it actually said. “You don’t love me any more,” she says, pleasantly surprised by how evenly her voice comes out. “Despite letting you have the lie. You still don’t love me any more.”

John’s hesitation says it all. He can’t meet her eyes. “No,” he says, honest at least. “I’m sorry, Mary.”

“Don’t call me that,” she says, suddenly sharp. “It isn’t my name.”

“I know that.” John makes a helpless motion with his hands. “I don’t know what else to call you.”

“You never will now,” she tells him. Her mouth has gone dry and her voice is flat. She pauses. “I suppose I might as well tell you, then: it’s not your child.”

John’s head snaps up so quickly that it startles her. “What?” he demands. 

“It’s not your child,” she repeats firmly. “I had a paternity test done. It’s David’s. I found out about ten days ago.”

John’s mouth falls open in disbelief. “You cheated on me?”

“Excellent deduction,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Yes, John. I cheated on you. Just the once, but… seems once was enough. Sorry. I didn’t tell you because I knew you would leave me. And since you’re leaving anyway, there’s no reason for you not to know. Although I suppose you could consider it kind that I told you so that you won’t have to pay alimony. You’re welcome.”

“Thank you,” John says, sounding stunned, and she would be nastily pleased to have reduced him to such a state, but then he adds, “No, really – _thank_ you! I’m so relieved to hear that!”

Mary scowls. “I want your stuff out by tonight.”

“Might not be possible,” John says, unmoved. “But I’ll have it out very soon. You have my word on that.”

Her jaw tightens. “You need to leave now.” 

“I will. I’ll go to Harry’s or something.” John looks over at his laptop and goes to collect it, also unplugging his phone charger from the wall. “I’ll just get a few things and then I’ll be out. I’ll, er, make all the arrangements. For the divorce.”

“Fine,” Mary says through gritted teeth. She can’t help the nasty dig and doesn’t try to. “Not going to Sherlock’s, then? Something happen? You two fighting? I thought that was always where you ran when things got difficult for us.”

“And by ‘difficult’, you mean when you _shot_ him,” John fires back. “And no, not yet. I’ll need a day or two to sort things out with you. But then after, yes.”

“How nice.” It pains her to say it, even sarcastically. “Good of him to take you back.”

John stops moving for a moment, then straightens up, laptop in his hands. He turns to face her deliberately, then says, “Yes, it is. Especially when I’ve kept him waiting for about four years now.”

Something in her heart dies a little at this, at the look on his face as he says it. John just won the competition of who can hurt whom more in this awful conversation they’re having. She lowers her head in surrender, unable to think of anything to say. She sits down at the kitchen table as John goes into the bedroom to pack a bag, hands uselessly cradling her cold cup of tea. 

When he comes out a few minutes later, he says, “Right, well. I’m off, then.”

She barely recognises her own voice when she speaks. “Get out. Now.”

He leaves without another word, the downstairs door slamming behind him. 

She doesn’t move for an hour, staring into the tea as though it holds the answers as to how the hell this all went so very wrong. 

What John said about Sherlock and _four years_ is the worst part. The information sits within her like a lump of ice and hardens. She hardens around it, feels the moment it pushes her over the line of numb, too-hurt-to-grieve-yet, abandoned wife to cold, decisive professional again. The old version never would have taken this lying down, pregnant or otherwise. One thing is certain: she’s decidedly not mobile enough with this extra weight out front; it will have to wait until after the baby is born. 

And then she knows precisely what she will do. 

***

It takes three days before John has a copy of the papers he wants to have with him. Mary refused to tell him in her texts the name of the doctor who confirmed her pregnancy, but he managed to get the information from Mycroft, who apparently does have his uses. The doctor, one Thomas Richards, gave John the papers once John showed him why he needed it. Then it was back to the courthouse, and now finally, finally, he is stomping to Baker Street with papers in hand to show Sherlock proof of his loyalty, of his decision to come back and stay forever this time. If Sherlock will only have him. He’s torn between anger and fear, though if Sherlock tells him to leave again, he will probably punch him. Unless he truly means it, which would devastate him. 

John takes a deep breath and lets himself in. It’s just after eight; Sherlock will be home and awake. The courthouse closed at six and then he went back to Harry’s to change and fuss at his hair before finally collecting the papers from a notary and going to Baker Street. 

The flat is quiet. John goes up the stairs and pushes open the uncharacteristically-closed door to the sitting room. Sherlock is sitting at the kitchen table, poking at a decaying liver with a pair of tweezers. He looks up, as though he was expecting John at precisely that moment. His face doesn’t change. If anything, he looks slightly apprehensive. “John.”

John walks in and slaps the papers down in front of him. “Don’t get blood on those,” he says, his voice harsher than he intended. 

Sherlock’s eyes are scanning rapidly. He looks up, frowning. “An annulment? John – ” 

“Divorce has to wait a full year; annulment can happen any time,” John informs him shortly. “If the marriage was voidable.”

Sherlock blinks. “Was it?”

“Yes, if the woman is pregnant by another man’s child at the time of the marriage,” John says flatly. “You’re not the only one who can do research.”

Sherlock peels off his gloves and tosses them aside, picking up the papers and looking at them closely, apparently unable to speak for the time being. 

“Is that good enough?” John can’t help it; the words burst out of him before Sherlock has finished looking through the paperwork. “Will that do? Will you have me now, or what else do I need to do to prove it’s you, that it’s only ever been you?”

Sherlock’s eyes snap up to his. “Are you here to stay, then?” he asks, as intensely as he’s ever said anything. He’s on his feet, the papers abandoned and forgotten, moving closer. “ _Are_ you? Because if you’re not – ”

“ _Yes!_ ” John cuts in, desperation rising. “Forever, if you want me t – ”

He’s cut off when Sherlock closes the space between them, lightning-quick, interrupting John’s inadequate words with his mouth, and John stops trying to talk at once and pours every ounce of his being and will into this kiss. It’s as though a dam has burst in Sherlock – even the few seconds of their first, aborted kiss have nothing on this; Sherlock has thrown down every wall, every barrier and is kissing John as though John himself is oxygen to him. It’s incredible – he’d no idea that Sherlock could be _this_ passionate, his mouth both hard yet yielding against his, melding with him. They kiss, hands gripping each other as though they’re both afraid the other will let go and run, forcing each other to stay, to give themselves to this moment. John feels the hard edge of the sliding door in his back and realises that Sherlock has backed him into it. He doesn’t care; he’s got his arms clamped around Sherlock’s back and Sherlock’s hands are rubbing over his back and shoulders and arse, and John is hard in his jeans. Sherlock is utterly wild; there’s no time for conversation, for questions and permissions and fervent agreement – all that is being spoken fluently between their bodies already. He clutches Sherlock as close as he can get him, feels the answering arousal through his trousers. Between kisses Sherlock is gasping, his very breath completely wanton, wrecked with lust and John has never in his life felt so desired. Sherlock wasn’t exaggerating – there is nothing that could stop this from happening now. Not when they’ve waited _so_ long; it’s so overdue that it’s nearly toxic now, the need for it having sat too long, turning bitter and black and driven by all the fury of misunderstanding and love too long unrequited. John doesn’t care about any of that, as long as it finally happens now. He doesn’t care what Sherlock wants to do – he will agree to it, and if Sherlock is beyond the point of being able to ask for it, he will simply submit to it, this first time, at least. 

“John…” Sherlock’s voice is ragged, breath hot on John’s neck, his teeth nearly breaking the skin. “I want to devour you… I’ve wanted you for so long, _needed_ you… I can’t possibly tell you the entirety of what I feel for you – I – ”

“I know,” John gasps in a mix of pain and pleasure; Sherlock’s hands are on him, gripping his arse through his jeans. “Me too – I just – anything you want, tonight – please, just – don’t ever turn me away again.”

“Don’t ever leave me again,” Sherlock counters, mouth on John’s throat. His fingers move up John’s chest, unbuttoning as they go, then find the sleeve buttons and then yank John’s shirt off altogether. He can feel Sherlock’s eyes devouring him, raking over his skin nearly as tangibly as his hands, which are caressing John’s sides almost worshipfully. He’s suddenly glad he’s walked so much lately; he’s trimmer than he was before Christmas and hopes with a touch of self-deprecation that Sherlock actually finds him attractive. Sherlock doesn’t seem bothered by anything he’s seeing or feeling – or tasting, John amends mentally, groaning aloud as Sherlock’s mouth and tongue work their way down his front. His jeans are opened and pushed roughly down and Sherlock finally touches him for the first time, touching his cock as though it’s something infinitely valuable, rare, and utterly revered. 

His jeans around his ankles, John is helpless to move as Sherlock kneels in front of him, examining his cock at close range, his breath warm on it as he exhales in something akin to wonder. He looks up at John, perhaps a silent request for permission, and John can only stare back down at him, feeling that even this is too far away for Sherlock to be at the moment. “Jeans,” Sherlock says hoarsely, and John steps out of them with difficulty, as Sherlock is still holding him by his erection. Sherlock peels his socks off and throws them away, then takes John’s cock into his mouth without another word. It’s so good it’s almost painful, the feeling of it so exquisitely, torturously good that it almost makes John glad he hasn’t got laid in five months now. Sherlock’s mouth is like hot, wet silk, sliding over the length of him, sucking, his tongue working against him, his long, delicate fingers probing at John’s arse and over his balls. It’s like electricity, the sensation assailing him and he’s helpless to resist it, to pace himself. All he can do is moan and clutch at Sherlock’s head as Sherlock gives him the most forcible, oh-Jesus-don’t-stop-now-level blow job of his life. He’s getting close when Sherlock pushes a long finger into him, just uncomfortable enough to make him gasp. Sherlock pulls his mouth off. “Okay?” he wants to know. 

“Yeah,” John says, panting. “I just wasn’t expecting – oh. _Oh_ , God. Yeah – yes – ” Sherlock’s fingers are twisting within him, stretching, and while it’s still a bit uncomfortable, it’s also starting to feel _really_ good. Sherlock is mostly watching his face now, but occasionally licking at John’s flushed-dark erection bobbing in front of him, hard and full and wanting, and John is starting to push himself toward to meet the thrusts of Sherlock’s fingers. He’d no idea that this part could be so good. 

Sherlock seems to understand instinctively when John hits the point of teetering on the very edge and immediately withdraws his fingers, kissing his way up John’s torso until John’s hungry mouth finds his again. “I want to be inside you,” Sherlock says against his mouth. “I want to consume you.”

John’s breath hitches and shudders, and he must have nodded because Sherlock makes a noise which is simultaneously relieved and aroused. It’s John’s turn to be frantically undressing him, desperate for skin-on-skin contact now. Sherlock is helping him, shedding his expensive clothes without a second thought for their welfare, flinging them anywhere and then finally, finally, their bodies are pressed together, Sherlock’s hardness sliding against his lower pelvis, balls touching John’s cock, their torsos joined from hip to chest as they kiss, hands tearing at each other’s hair, gripping each other’s skin. John is still so turned on he could almost just come from this, he thinks, just kissing and rubbing together the way they are, but Sherlock has other plans. 

“Bedroom,” he breathes, his voice nearly a growl, and he doesn’t wait for John to agree, manhandling him into and down the hallway, still kissing and nearly tripping over each other. John finds himself pushed down onto the bed, Sherlock climbing onto him, and this is even better with the full weight of Sherlock pinning him to the blankets, making their contact even closer.

Sherlock is panting and thrusting against him and John thinks again that he might just come from this alone. He rolls them over so that he’s on top, then says, “If you want to – do what you said, I hope you’ve got lube here somewhere.”

“Of course,” Sherlock says, as though it’s an idiotic thing to say, but John strongly suspects that this is his first proper sexual encounter with anyone of either gender. Sherlock is reaching toward the drawer of the bedside table but can’t quite reach, so John slides off him and gets it. Sherlock takes the tube from him, his face and eyes lit with desire so intense John feels half-consumed by that alone. Without another word, Sherlock is rubbing the cool, slick lube over his hole and into him again, then pushing John’s legs up and then his cock is right there, against him. “Okay?”

“Yes – ” It’s all John can manage; he’s panting himself, at the very thought of being with Sherlock like this. It’s almost overwhelming. They never should have waited this long, because now it’s impossible to go any slower. The desperation on both sides is too strong, the drive too great. They could have torn each other’s skins off in their mutual need. As it is, Sherlock is pushing into his body and shuddering, eyes tightly closed, ripples of reaction shivering through his muscles and John is willing himself to relax and open to it, torn between the stretch of the intrusion, the pleasurable burn already beginning to build, and the sensation of his heart full to bursting at finally being this close, this intimate with Sherlock. He’s never been with anyone like this, never had another person inside his body this way. He opens his eyes when Sherlock is all the way inside him. 

Sherlock’s lips are trembling along with the rest of his body. “John…” It seems to be all he can say. 

“I know,” John says, and he does. His voice is tight with suppressed emotion and all of the physical sensations he’s experiencing. 

“I love you.” Sherlock’s voice is shaking, too. “I should have said it when you did the other day, but – ”

“It’s okay. I understand.” John reaches up with one hand and touches his face. “Kiss me.”

Sherlock does, and as it goes, John’s body finally relaxes enough that he can bear it when Sherlock instinctively starts to move within him. His thighs are clamped around Sherlock’s back, legs crossed at the ankles, and they find a rhythm, John rocking back onto Sherlock’s thrusts, and the sensation is incredible. He’s never felt prostate stimulation like this before, never so intensely. They’re both breathing too hard to kiss now, but Sherlock’s breath is on his lips as he begins to go faster and faster. John is breathing filthy encouragement, outright begging, until Sherlock is absolutely pounding into him. John begins to come without even realising he was about to, but he’s been on edge since Sherlock put his mouth on his cock, and now, untouched, he’s coming hard, his body spasming and shuddering as Sherlock slams into him repeatedly. He can hear all the noise he’s making as the orgasm guts through him, laying him to waste, come juddering out of him in pulse after pulse. Sherlock is frantic, his thrusts becoming more and more erratic and desperate until he gives a shout and then comes so hard that John thinks he can practically taste it, his body slamming into John’s and going rigid, buried to the hilt as he floods John’s body with his release. He comes so hard that his eyes are wet by the time his orgasm finally spends itself. 

His limbs are shaking as he collapses onto John, gasping, and John holds him as the spasm passes, breathing hot-breathed kisses onto Sherlock’s sweaty forehead, cradling his body with all four limbs. “Oh, God, John,” Sherlock pants when he can speak, his breath warm against John’s neck. “I didn’t know it could be like this. With you. With anyone – but it had to be you. It was always you.”

Unbidden, John feels the prickle of tears behind his eyes and has to blink them back. “I know,” he says, the very depth of his own feelings having gutted him and left him both hollow, yet somehow fuller than he’s ever felt in his life. “It was always you, too. It should have been this from the start.”

“Stupid. I was so stupid.” Sherlock closes his eyes, the lashes brushing against John’s neck. His lips are parted, breathing into John’s skin. 

“We both were.” John strokes his fingers through Sherlock’s hair, then pulls his face up to kiss him for a very long time. After awhile, Sherlock softens and slips out of him, bringing out a warm rush of sticky wetness with it, and maybe he should get up and clean off, but they’re still twined together, kissing and holding each other and John can’t bear the thought of losing even a second of it. Not after all this time. 

***

When John wakes the first time, he’s disoriented for a few seconds, but Sherlock is there, draped across him, legs still tangled with his. His weight is languid on John and he remembers everything that happened all at once, his heart and cheeks both warming at the thought. He’s aching a little, but couldn’t possibly regret it. He turns his head to look at Sherlock’s sleeping face, so close that he can barely focus on it. His lips are parted, sleeping as deeply as John has ever seen him do, his mouth nearly touching John’s shoulder. John shifts down a little and touches his lips to Sherlock’s forehead, lightly so as not to wake him. He feels utterly content, his heart full. He gets his arm around Sherlock again and moves even closer, allowing himself to drown in the heat of Sherlock’s proximity. Finally. He falls asleep again like that, listening to the beat of his own heart in his ears, Sherlock’s pulse echoing it against his chest. 

The second time he wakes, the early morning light is just beginning to steal into the room. It only takes him a second to remember where he is this time; Sherlock is still there beside him, only he’s awake and has pushed himself up into a sitting position, his back to the headboard. He’s still nude, his knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them. He’s withdrawn as much as possible without having actually left the room. John feels a touch of concern. “Morning,” he says, his voice rough. 

Sherlock looks down at him. “Good morning,” he says quietly, and John’s concern deepens into a frisson of fear. Something is definitely wrong. 

He puts a hand on Sherlock’s shin. “Hey,” he says. “You all right?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer for a long moment. Then, finally, he nods, though it’s not at all convincing. “Are _you_?” he asks, almost accusingly. 

“Me?” John blinks. “What? Yeah, I’m fine – what’s going on?” He’s completely awake now and worried. He sits up, wrestles the pillow behind him and gets himself beside Sherlock, turned to face him a bit. 

Sherlock makes a helpless sort of shrug. He looks miserable. “Nothing. It’s just… that’s not how I wish it had gone, last night.”

John feels like he’s missed a step somewhere. “But – why?” he asks. “I thought it was pretty good, personally… it was _really_ good,” he amends. “I thought it was incredible, if you want my honest opinion. No complaints on my end. Was it not… what was…” he trails off, unable to find the right words for his question. Had Sherlock woken up discovering that he doesn’t actually like sex, after all? Is he regretting it? A stab of ice plunges through his gut. 

Sherlock gives a laugh that contains no mirth at all. “Well, I’m glad to hear you say that,” he says, looking down at the blankets around his feet. “I just – it wasn’t particularly romantic, was it? I was so rough, so impatient. I wish I could go back and do it the right way. The way it should have been.”

He looks so self-conscious that John’s worry dissolves as he realises what Sherlock is on about. “Hey,” he says, his voice warm, doing his best to sound reassuring. He puts his arms around Sherlock, knees and all. “There’s nothing wrong with how it was last night. It was a bit rough, yeah, but I liked it. I’ve never been so turned on in all my life. I wanted you so badly and I liked knowing that you wanted me just as much.”

“Or more,” Sherlock says, but he looks slightly less worried. 

“Not possible,” John contradicts, and Sherlock turns his head and finally looks at him. John leans in and kisses him. It starts slowly, as though they’re both trying to confirm everything that happened yesterday, that everything is all right, that they both still want this, want each other. As it goes it deepens, John puts his hand on Sherlock’s face and Sherlock’s legs slide down, allowing John to get closer at last, and by the time it’s finished John is half in his lap, one of his legs wedged between Sherlock’s back and the headboard. 

Sherlock’s fingers are in his hair, his eyes still closed for a moment after they break apart. “I want to be everything you need, everything you want,” he says, eyes still closed. “I want to be worth having left your wife for.”

“You are,” John says fiercely. “You always were.”

“This – I should have done something larger, made some kind of grand, sweeping gesture, instead of sulking around the flat all the time and thinking you would never love me,” Sherlock goes on, ignoring him. He opens his eyes. “I don’t half deserve you and I know it. If I had never come back, you would still have your marriage. You would have been happier without me. Mary could have kept her secrets. You never would have had your loyalties divided – ”

“For God’s sake, would you shut _up_!” John is exasperated. Sherlock looks hurt, lips tightening in the stubborn expression that John knows all too well. “Look: I’m the one who should be apologising, with my going back and forth, with having married someone who shot you, then forgiving her and leaving you again.”

“I always knew you would,” Sherlock says. “I had encouraged you to do it all along. But the more time that passed, the more I started to hope that maybe you would just… stay. I had no right to hope for that and no right to be so angry when you did leave again. It’s hard not to hope, though. That maybe you would never actually go back. And that maybe it would happen after all. Eventually.”

“But then I left again,” John says. He leans his forehead against Sherlock’s. “God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even realise at the time, how hard that would be on you. But even before that – I mean, I denied it for so long. How I felt. Other people could see it, what we really were, except we ourselves hadn’t ever – I don’t know, let it be what it was supposed to be. But it should have been this all along.”

Sherlock’s eyes are intent on his. “You’re sure? Completely sure?”

“Completely sure,” John tells him. “And I don’t need sweeping romantic gestures. All I need is you.”

Sherlock opens his mouth to speak, but can’t seem to get the words out. Instead he swiftly kisses John again, and this time it’s nearly as wild as it was last night. John still feels that he will never stop being hungry for this, never stop needing to be this close to Sherlock, this intimate. It’s incredible, completely unbelievable that he’s allowed to do this, kiss him like this, so deeply that he can barely tell whose mouth is whose, his soft palate lifted so high he can barely breathe, and it doesn’t matter, couldn’t possibly matter, because the only thing that exists, that he needs in any way at all, is Sherlock. 

They’re sprawled out sideways in the bed now, John lying on top of Sherlock, and they’re both hard. He can feel Sherlock’s erection against his own and wonders again how the hell they managed to avoid this for all that time that they lived together – either the first year and a half, or the four months before Christmas. How had they both been so ridiculously blind? He opens his eyes to find Sherlock’s there, waiting. “Touch me,” he says, not sure whether it’s an order or a plea, his hand already groping downward to close around Sherlock. 

Sherlock makes a mangled sound of agreement and wraps his fingers around John’s cock. They kiss and stroke each other until they can’t kiss any more, panting and thrusting into each other’s hands, and it’s bliss, John thinks, as he comes all over Sherlock’s body. Sherlock’s breath sucks in sharply and then he’s doing the same, shuddering as his orgasm wracks him from head to toe. It’s a mess; they’re both still sticky from last night, but it’s fine, John thinks. More than fine. They’ll shower and maybe they’ll eat – though who can even think of food right now, honestly – and then they’ll make love again and eventually they’ll start figuring out the rest of their lives. No, John corrects himself: their life. 

***

Mary does a final check around her flat. Andrea is with Mrs Whitney, who seems unwarrantedly worried about her ability to care for a two-week old newborn, but Mary’s assured her that she won’t be long. She doesn’t know why the woman seems so nervous. It’s only been two weeks, but it’s been a month since John moved out and she’s tired of waiting. Her body isn’t quite back to normal yet – she’s still oddly loose in the midsection and her breasts are uncomfortably weighed down, but it will do. Quick check in the mirror to make sure she’s all tucked in. Unlike the night at CAM Global Media, this outfit has to be disguise as well as attack mode. So: the utility vest is a no-go but she’s wearing tight-fitted black pants – trousers, whatever (bloody Brits and their confusing terms) – and a long-sleeved thermal shirt, also black. Rubber-soled black trainers, and she’s fitted a down-filled coat with several interior pockets that won’t be noticed beneath the bulk of the down. Black wool hat and she’s ready to go. The silencer is already in place, the pistol loaded. Though she’ll only need two bullets. Two bullets to eliminate the two men who ruined her chances at having a normal life – the one who broke her heart and the one he left her for. Sherlock deserves to die even more than John does, but she knows that John will never come back to her, with or without Sherlock. That’s completely finished. He hasn’t spoken to her once since the day he left, sending a moving company back with his keys to pack up the rest of his things. She’s made no effort to contact him, either. London is nice enough. She could stay here. But John’s presence is ruining the city for her. 

She takes a taxi to Baker Street. The outside door is locked for once but locked doors never had posed much of a problem for her. She has it open in under twenty seconds, the stiffness of the old lock slowing her a little. She checks to make sure Mrs Hudson isn’t in (she isn’t; she plays bridge on Tuesdays) and stealthily creeps up to the landing. She could have scaled the house from the outside, of course, but when a door and a stairwell are so easily available, why call attention to herself? She’s expecting to find John and Sherlock in the sitting room, though it would be poetic perfection to catch them in bed together. She should have known, about John. He was far too obsessed with Sherlock for any straight man. Far too dependant on him, far too in awe of everything about him. She’s about to put to bed permanently his notions of Sherlock’s all-powerful intellect, his omniscience. And after John’s watched him die, he’ll realise that he was never in any position to do this to her. That he had no right to take her chance at a normal life away, or to betray her like this. And then she will kill him. 

He’ll die cursing her, she knows. Is it any worse than living and cursing her, though? Probably not. And she’ll gain peace of mind from it, at least. And then she’ll begin again. Find a new name. And a man who’s always wanted a baby, maybe. It will mean saying goodbye to all of the contacts she’s built up as Mary Morstan, but she’s done this before. Killed one identity to assume another one. It’s just that Mary Morstan was a temporary stopover rather than a permanent one. That’s all. There’s no reason to feel so stupidly sad about losing this particular face. And at least her own name, the first she ever had, will live on in her infant daughter. They'll either find a way to fit, to adjust, or else they’ll be together on the run, living in the shadows of the world. Andrea will grow up in that world, knowing it, knowing how to survive, how to kill without remorse, to do it so well that half the nations of the world will drown her in wealth and unspoken privilege for it. For her skills. Mary will teach her how to do all of that. 

But not just yet. There’s a job to do now. The last one before she’ll be free of this terrible situation. She was wrong to trust. She knows that, knew it all along. Wrong to love. Loving is giving one’s power away. Next time she’ll know better. 

Mary waits, listening, then begins to move up the stairs. 

The door to the flat opens slowly and Sherlock steps out onto the upper landing. Their eyes meet. Mary’s gun is in her coat, easily accessible, but not directly in her hand. Not yet. “So,” Sherlock says. 

She stops, three steps up from the landing. “So,” she returns steadily. 

He pulls his blue dressing gown closer around himself and crosses his arms. “Looking for John?”

“I’m looking for you, actually,” Mary says coolly. “John’s turn will come.”

“Ah.” Sherlock nods, sounding satisfied. “So you’re thinking of shooting me again.”

“It’s really more like a plan,” Mary says, and reaches for her gun. 

Somehow Sherlock moves faster than she realised he could and there’s a revolver in his own hand before she’s got her gun out. “Don’t,” he says, his voice like a wall. The pleasantness has evaporated completely. 

Mary lifts her hands slowly, eyes fixed on Sherlock’s. She recognises the gun as John’s illegal Sig. 

“Mycroft,” Sherlock says to the empty air in the corridor, “now would be a good time.”

There footsteps from below and above at the same time, helmeted, armoured intelligence grunts pounding down the stairs from John’s old bedroom and up from Mrs Hudson’s flat at the same time. She’s surrounded. They take the pistol from her and find the knife strapped to her inner thigh as well. They’re all strangers, at least until Mycroft Holmes says a single word that causes the foot soldiers to make way. He lavishes his most grimly smug smile upon her and pronounces, “Mary Morstan, you are hereby placed under arrest for the attempted murder of my brother as of the nineteenth of August, as well as for the attempted murder of both the aforementioned and John Watson – your ex-husband.” He holds up a small black recording device.

She understands at once: her conversation with Sherlock just now was recorded. (Stupid, saying it aloud. She’s forgotten everything she once knew. Let her feelings get in her way.) This is it, then. They have legal grounds against her. The dream of living on the run with Andrea flickers and dies and there is a bitter taste on her tongue. She looks up the stairs to see that John has emerged from the flat and is standing just behind Sherlock and as she watches, he takes Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock lets him, drawing John behind him in a gesture more protective than she’d thought Sherlock had in him. Over Sherlock’s shoulder, her eyes meet John’s. “What about my daughter?” she asks him, firing the question like an accusation. She feels numb. Sherlock must have had people following her recently, or else Mycroft’s surveillance went further than she’d taken into account. 

“Mrs Whitney called the police when you left the flat,” John tells her neutrally. “We’ve been half-expecting something like this. The baby will be put into protective custody until your legal status has been established, or they sort which country will be extraditing you for the trial. After that, we’ll see.”

Mycroft finishes cuffing her and adds, “You’re also facing assault charges on Janine Ryan and Stuart Branston, who have decided to press charges after all. The threats against Charles Magnussen have been nullified with his death, of course. There are also a number of other outstanding charges made by quite a long list of countries – the trial should be fascinating. I look forward to it.” He treats her to another grimace disguised as a smile and waves at his men to take her away. 

Her last glimpse of John is of him standing there, mouth set, eyes dark with unhappy concern, fingers still interwoven with Sherlock’s. Then she’s pushed around the corner and down to the waiting cars on the pavement. It’s finished. She closes her eyes and stops fighting. They manhandle her into one of the cars and Mary decides that she doesn’t care. She doesn’t feel anything. The sirens are blaring, lights flashing, and a crowd has gathered. It doesn’t matter. It’s all just noise. 

***

It’s been two weeks since Mary’s failed revenge attempt. Apart from that hiccough, John still finds himself waking every day unable to believe that things have turned out the way they have. In his attempts to prove that he is actually capable of being romantic, Sherlock has been vastly more attentive than John ever thought him capable of being, almost never forgetting when he’s in the room. They’ve had three or four cases and Sherlock hasn’t once left him at a crime scene. He even thanks John in front of other people, with the careful, secret smile that’s only for him. The first time it happened out in public, that smile had hit John in the knees and he’d had nearly grinned back a foolish grin of utterly ridiculous devotion that he’d only just managed to bite back in time, his heart still stretching almost painfully within his chest. And when yesterday’s case had wrapped up, Sherlock had actually taken his hand on their way to get a taxi, only twenty metres or so from the police and the onlookers that had gathered. 

It’s been heavenly. And slowly they’ve managed to start pacing themselves in bed a little more, having barely left the bedroom once in those first three or four days together, the happiest John’s ever lived in his life. He’s seeing sides of Sherlock he’d never known existed, just how funny he can be when he’s properly relaxed, how unflinching he is about saying what he feels in the big moments, and he’s even learned very quickly how to let himself be affectionate in the small moments, too. John has done his best to make sure that he knows that everything is all right, that John won’t laugh at him or mock him for baring himself. There are moments when things are actually very funny and they both laugh at a position that doesn’t quite work or any one of the other myriad things that can go less than perfectly in bed, but never in the emotional moments. John’s tried his best to be as open as he knows how to be, too. It’s not exactly his best thing, either, but Sherlock is trying so hard. Far too hard, perhaps, but John feels more actively loved than he ever has in his life and lacks both the heart and the desire to hold Sherlock back in any way from this. 

And apart from just being vastly happier and much more physical than they were before, life seems a lot like it was in the days before Sherlock’s “death”. No, that’s not right, John corrects himself. Life is a whole lot better than it ever was then. He’d thought he was quite content then, but this doesn’t compare. It’s like black-and-white versus colour. 

Sherlock walks into the sitting room, evidently finished with the eyeball he was processing in the kitchen, whose current experiment has taken over all of the surfaces and counters (thereby assuring John that Sherlock is indeed every bit as happy as he himself is) and comes to sit down right beside him on the sofa. “I’ve washed and disinfected myself,” he assures John before John can ask, leaning over to kiss his cheek.

“Good,” John says, allowing the kiss and smiling. “Finished with the eyeball?”

Sherlock hums in assent. “The victim was exposed to lead poisoning. It was fascinating. I’ll show you later.”

“Does that mean the eyeball is still out on the table somewhere?” John asks warily, though he’s not really upset about it. 

“No, it’s back in the fridge.” Sherlock kisses his neck, leaning him into the arm of the sofa, and John twists around so that he’s on his back, Sherlock slotting himself into the space between his legs, lying on top of him. They kiss for a few minutes and then Sherlock lifts his head. “Are you working tomorrow?”

John thinks. Tomorrow is Friday. “I am, but I don’t have to be,” he says, considering. “Why?”

“Could you possibly miss work and come somewhere with me?” Sherlock asks, making it sound casual, but John can feel something suppressed in the way his body and persona both are quivering in some sort of excitement. 

“Okay,” he says. “Where are we going?”

Sherlock hesitates. “Can it be a surprise?”

John smiles up at him, both pleased and intrigued. “Sure. Do I need to bring anything?”

“I’ll bring anything you need,” Sherlock promises. He’s smiling. “When can we leave?”

“Whenever you want,” John says. “Is it far?”

“I’d rather not say.” 

Sherlock’s eyes are glinting in a way that John thinks should probably alarm him, but he looks so pleased with himself that John gives in and kisses him instead of saying anything to put a damper on his mood. The kiss gets involved, as they have a habit of doing. They’re rubbing themselves together, fingers intertwined where they’re resting on John’s shoulders, then Sherlock is sliding down his body, fingers pulling out of John’s to fumble at the button of his jeans. He seems to love going down on John and John really can’t complain, so he doesn’t. He tried saying once that it wasn’t strictly mandatory and Sherlock had looked wary and hadn’t tried to do it again until John finally asked him if he wanted to. He’s learning how to navigate this as much as Sherlock is, he thinks, propping himself up on his elbows to watch. Seeing Sherlock do this is nearly as much of a turn-on as the feeling of it – and that’s saying a lot. He groans as Sherlock’s mouth dips over his cock, knowing that Sherlock likes the aural cues, not that John has to feign anything here. He lets his head drop back, revelling in it, and Sherlock catches this and is suddenly climbing onto him again to mouth at John’s throat, their cocks bumping and then Sherlock’s hand is wrapping around them both and stroking hard, both their bodies pushing together. John gets his hand between them on Sherlock’s, his other gripping and massaging Sherlock’s arse (God, that arse – he will never get tired of touching it, he’s already thought a dozen times now) until they’re both coming. Sherlock starts before he does, the spasm tangible through his arse, and the thought of him coming is enough to set John’s orgasm off. Mrs Hudson has already asked them to keep the door to the flat closed whenever they’re together and John hopes that one of them remembered today, because they’re both making rather a lot of noise. She won’t really mind; she’d brought them an enormous cake on about the third day, and stayed to cut and eat a piece with them as Sherlock finally told her directly the way things are now. She’d allowed that she’d more or less cottoned on, and worked in her request about the flat door then. 

Sherlock is breathing hard against his forehead. “Sorry – I just – I had to touch you with my hands, needed you to – ”

“Yes?” John prompts, still panting, himself. “What did you need?” He’s been trying to get Sherlock to verbalise what he wants in bed, embarrassing as he finds it. 

“I – needed you to touch me, then,” Sherlock gets out. “Usually I can just wait until after, but – ”

He means after John has come, John knows. “It’s fine,” he assures Sherlock. “This was great. And I wanted to be touching you then, too.”

Sherlock kisses him. “How did I ever manage to deserve you?” he muses, half to himself. Then: “Do you think we’ll get tired of this soon?”

“No,” John says swiftly. “I don’t think we ever will. Not after how long we waited.”

Sherlock studies him for a long time, and keeps whatever he’s thinking to himself. Then he says, changing the subject, “The experiment is all over the kitchen. Shall we go out for dinner? It’s on me.”

“Sure,” John says, smiling at him.

***

The next morning the alarm goes off and John drags himself into the shower. Sherlock is already awake from the sounds of it; he wasn’t in bed when the alarm went off. When John emerges from the shower, Sherlock appears in the hallway to hand him a cup of tea to take into the bedroom as he gets dressed. John kisses him and goes to find something to wear. They leave twenty minutes later, Sherlock directing the cab to Paddington Station. He manages to keep their destination secret until the moment he reluctantly allows them to get onto the platform. Even so, knowing that they’re going to Eastbourne hasn’t enlightened John any as to why they’re headed to Sussex. Sherlock is palpably excited on the train until about halfway there, when he suddenly seems to get nervous instead. John reaches for his hand and holds it tightly. Sherlock returns the grip and doesn’t say anything, but he gradually gets a little less tense. 

When they arrive in Eastbourne an hour and a half later, Sherlock rents them a car, leans forward to ask a quiet question or two of the clerk which John is obviously not meant to hear, so he takes care to wander off to the side to examine a pamphlet about seasonal cruises until Sherlock comes back to him, announcing that they can go. The car is a jeep of some sort, similar to the thing they rented in Dartmoor years ago. The drive takes about half an hour, following the coast but the view is obscured by trees. Sherlock gave him a map when they got into in the car and instructed John to tell him when the reached Seaford, a village to the west of Eastbourne. When they’ve reached it, Sherlock finds his way until they’re just outside the village, turning to stop in front of a stone cottage that sits on a hill overlooking the village and the sea. He switches off the engine and gets out, so John follows him. The first thing he notices is the scent of the sea, even from here, and beyond that, the fresh scent of trees and green, growing things. The sky is blue, thick white clouds scudding over it, and from here he can see the white triangles of sailboats on the sea. He is immediately enchanted. 

“Is this where we’re going?” he asks Sherlock, gesturing at the cottage. 

“Yes,” Sherlock says. “I thought it might be nice.”

John goes around the car and kisses him spontaneously. “Are we staying for the weekend, then?” 

Sherlock is smiling back down at him. “I thought we could.”

“I can’t believe you planned this without my knowing!” John feels half his age suddenly, as though the holidays have just begun. “Is it a rental, then? Friends of yours? Is there anyone else here?” 

Sherlock doesn’t answer this. “Let’s go inside and see it. I haven’t been here before.”

He has a key, somehow, and John could ask but he doesn’t. The door is old but the key fits and turns, and they go in. Sherlock switches on lights as they go, inspecting everything. It’s lovely, John thinks, and says so out loud. The principle feature of the sitting room is a large, granite-lined fireplace with a wide hearth and lots of space in front of it. There are two comfortable-looking chairs on either side, and facing it is a long, leather sofa not unlike the one at Baker Street. It’s only the third week of February so it’s still cool outside and John decides immediately that they’ll have to have a fire tonight. This is a proper fireplace, not like the small one at Baker Street. 

“Come see the rest,” Sherlock says, and they explore the kitchen, which has a worn stone floor and a lot of copper pots hanging from a rack above a wooden island, double doors leading out into the back courtyard. This proves to be a sheltered, sunny spot with a bit of garden, and beyond that, there are a number of disused beehives a safe distance from the cottage. Sherlock’s eyes gleam a little at these and John thinks of his _Apis florea_ mug back at home. 

“I want to see the other rooms,” he says, and leads the way back inside. There are two guest bedrooms and the whole of the second storey is taken up by a loft-style bedroom with a hammock chair hanging from a thick wooden beam, and a massive adjoining loo with a huge, deep tub, a separate shower, and brand new fixtures. The best feature of the bedroom is that the entire south wall is made of glass, triple-paned to keep out the cold and overlooking the sea. John is entranced by the view and goes to stand at the window. 

Sherlock comes to stand behind him, his arms coming around John’s middle. “Do you like it?” he asks, his lips close to John’s ear. 

“I love it,” John says honestly. “What a beautiful spot to come for the weekend. It was a brilliant choice, and this cottage is really lovely!”

“I hoped you might like it,” Sherlock says. There’s something wistful and a bit uncertain in his voice and John wonders why. 

“I do. I really do. It’s beautiful. Is this meant to be a bit of a honeymoon, sort of?” he asks. “Not that we’re married, but you know what I mean. Kind of a celebration because we’re finally together?”

He feels Sherlock hesitate. “Not entirely,” he says. “Do you really like the cottage?”

“Yes,” John says, turning in Sherlock’s arms to face him to assure him of this for the fourth or fifth time now. “I really do. Wh – ”

“It’s yours,” Sherlock tells him. 

For a moment John is too stunned to react. Then – “ _What?_ Sherlock – ”

“It’s yours,” Sherlock repeats. “I bought it for you.” He looks even more uncertain than he did before, but he hasn’t moved away, hands still resting on John’s hips, watching his reaction closely. “I thought that… perhaps one day, when we’re older and tired of the city, we might want to retire out here. Only if you want to, of course.”

John’s mouth opens but he’s at a complete loss for words. “Sherlock…” He’s speechless. 

Sherlock’s lips twitch. “I didn’t think you would particularly want to get married again, but – this is my attempt at a grand, sweeping gesture,” he says, still not entirely sure of himself. “I’m asking you – a bit officially, I suppose – to spend the rest of your life with me.”

John feels a swell of emotion come into his throat, so thick that for a moment he’s genuinely incapable of speech. He has never been this close to tears before in a context that wasn’t truly sad – save, perhaps, when Sherlock said that he loved him, at his wedding to Mary. He swallows hard, pushing the block in his throat down. “Yes,” he says. Then, “Oh, God, Sherlock. Yes. Always. You never needed to ask – yes. _Yes_.”

Sherlock’s face breaks into a relieved smile. “Good,” he says, the relief palpable in his tone, too. “Look in your jacket pocket. Inside pocket, left side.”

John reaches into it, wondering how on earth Sherlock managed to plant something on him without his noticing, and finds a small envelope. Inside he finds a property deed with his name on it. This property. “This will never do,” he says, studying it. 

“No?” Sherlock has moved closer, hands on John’s shoulders now. “What’s the problem?”

“We need to get your name added to it,” John says. “This can't be only mine. We can worry about that later. Where on earth did you find this? I mean, how did you even…?”

Sherlock smiles slightly. “Janine had said that she was going to buy it, with her revenge money. After she gave you access to Magnussen’s phone, I got in contact with her and asked if she had, in fact, bought it and she said that she’d decided against it. She sent me photographs and the estate agent sent me an email with the specifics and I made an offer. It was also when I was making arrangements with my brother for our security and as part of that, asked Janine to reconsider her decision not to press charges for her assault on the nineteenth of August. One of his people processed the sale and delivered the deed and the keys while you were at the clinic one day.”

“And when did you do all this?” John asks him, feeling almost dazed. 

“Twenty-four hours after you came home,” Sherlock tells him. “You were on the phone with your sister, I believe. I’ve been waiting for it to be made ready. It needed cleaning and some furniture, but yesterday afternoon I received word that it’s now habitable and I asked if we could come down and see it.”

John shakes his head, still holding the deed. “You’re – Sherlock, this is – ” He stops. That wasn’t quite what he wanted to say. He clears his throat and tries again. “Sherlock. This is the single most romantic thing that I have – _ever_ – ” Suddenly John finds he can’t finish his sentence again, choked with emotion, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He swallows and makes himself go on. “There’s not much more that I want than to spend the rest of my life with you – in London, or here, or anywhere else.”

Sherlock’s eyes are on his, drinking in the expression on his face as though it’s water to quench a lifelong thirst. He takes the deed out of John’s hands and puts it down on the dresser and pushes John’s coat off his shoulders, tosses his own to the floor, then draws John into his arms as carefully as though it’s the first time he’s ever touched him. “John,” he breathes, and it’s all he needs to say. Their lips come together, there in front of the backdrop of the sea and the clouds and the blue sky and John feels so full of emotion that it could split him in two, and knowing that it means just as much to Sherlock is absolutely breathtaking. He means it when he says forever. There will be no more making do. No more pushing away what they’ve both wanted all along. Because now it’s here. It’s real. 

And John will never turn his back on it again. 

*


End file.
